A coroner has warned the families of five people who were shot dead by the British Army in Springhill, Belfast in 1972 there are only “finite resources” and it may not be possible to finish the inquest before a May 1, 2024 deadline which is expected to be implemented by new legislation.
Five Catholic civilians—Margaret Gargan, 13, David McCafferty, 15, John Dougal, 16, Patrick Butler, 37, and Father Noel Fitzpatrick, 42, a priest—were killed during disturbances in July 9, 1972.
A pre-inquest hearing on Tuesday heard The Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill was due to get Royal Assent in September and, if that was the case, it would impose a deadline of May 1, 2024.
Any inquests which had not been concluded by that date would be terminated and any individuals accused of carrying out illegal acts would be granted an amnesty if they cooperated with a new truth-recovery body.
Barrister David Heraghy, representing the families of those who died at Springhill, told Tuesday’s hearing it would be “very undesirable” if the inquest was not concluded before the deadline.
Coroner Says ‘Preference’ Is to Finish Inquest
He said, “My preference would obviously be that the inquest does run to a conclusion and the court reaches findings ... and indeed that was my expectation when the inquest was opened.”Mr. Justice Scoffield said: “It would be wrong to consider this case simply in isolation. That’s because there are finite resources available to all of us. If indeed there has to be a cut-off point for inquests of May 1 it simply won’t be possible for everyone who wants their inquest to be concluded to be concluded within that time frame.”
More than 3,600 people were killed during The Troubles—the period of sectarian strife between 1969 and 1998 when the Provisional IRA sought to force a united Ireland through terrorism—and 1,000 of those killings remain unsolved.
The Good Friday Agreement, which ended The Troubles in 1998, allowed for convicted killers on both the republican and loyalist sides to be freed from prison, but did not create a process for what should happen if new evidence emerged about the unsolved killings.
‘Murderous Actions of the British State’
In April, JJ Magee, a Sinn Fein councillor in Belfast appearing at a protest against the Legacy Bill, said, “We all know full well the full extent of the murderous actions of the British state, who had no qualms about using lethal force against a civilian population whether in Derry, Ballymurphy, Springhill, or in the New Lodge.”Mr. Wallace, who served in Northern Ireland as a soldier in 1991, said the current system was “not serving the peace process well.”
The legislation was passed by Parliament last month and it will introduce a guillotine that effectively means many of the existing so-called legacy inquests could run out of time.
After the five deaths in July 1972—which are referred to by Irish nationalists and republicans as the Springhill massacre—an inquest the following year returned an open verdict, but a new inquest was ordered by Northern Ireland’s attorney general in 2014.
Soldiers’ Actions ‘Legitimate and Justified’
Counsel to the coroner, Michael O’Rourke, KC, told that hearing the British Army maintained soldiers opened fire after being shot at by IRA terrorists and their use of force was “legitimate and justified.”Tuesday’s hearing heard that a Public Interest Immunity (PII) hearing needed to be held before the inquest could go any further to hear an application for certain evidence to be excluded.
Mr. Justice Scoffield said the date of January 2024 had been suggested for that hearing but he was hopeful of moving it forward and holding it “between Halloween and Christmas.”
The coroner then adjourned the inquest until Sept. 15 and said he would be asking the Ministry of Defence and the Police Service of Northern Ireland to clarify their positions on the PII hearing in the next three weeks.
