South Down MP Margaret Ritchie has responded to the Police Ombudsman’s Loughinisland Massacre Report.
On 18th June 1994, a UVF gang attacked the country bar outside Ballynahinch and six lay dead and five were seriously injured. To date there have been no prosecutions. The packed bar of customers were watching the Ireland-Italy match in the World Cup where Ireland won 1-0.
She said: “It was collusion. It was informants before innocent lives. Now we must have a targeted police investigation and prosecutions. Justice must be seen to be done for the Loughinisland victims; survivors and their families.
“Twenty two years after the atrocity at O’Toole’s Bar in Loughinisland, and five years after a discredited Police Ombudsman Report, we now have the truth that collusion was a factor in the murder of six innocent men in The Heights Bar in Loughinisland, and the maiming and attempted murder of the others in the bar on that fateful night of 18th June 1994.
“Dr Maguire – the new Police Ombudsman – has not only called it right on collusion, but he has gone into depth on the failure of intelligence policing in South Down. Put simply, informants were placed before saving innocent lives.
“This report has brought forward the truth about the existence of “The Unit” in South Down; the loyalist paramilitary gang believed to be responsible for the murders in Loughinisland and other atrocities in the area including the Thierafurth Bar and the murder of Jack Kielty. Today will also be a very difficult day for the families of these victims and the survivors. We must remember them; their grief and their suffering on this day.
“The Ombudsman’s findings not only confirms the failures of intelligence policing within the RUC at the time of the murders and subsequent investigation but also raises questions with regard to the PSNI and their failure, to date, to bring prosecutions against “The Unit” or to pursue a live line of inquiry. To date we see no real evidence that the PSNI have been actively pursuing those identified by the Ombudsman Report.
“I have been pursuing the PSNI on their investigation and to date from the information I have received they state in a letter dated the 24th March 2016 to me that ‘following an internal review, a large number of recommendations for further investigative work were made. Serious Crime Branch have undertaken work in response to the recommendations, and the case is shortly to transfer into the caseload of the Legacy Investigation Branch‘.
“It is vitally important that the Police Ombudsman’s report is now referred to the Public Prosecutions Service and that the PSNI is pushed to pursue their investigations in a rigorous manner towards prosecutions for those who committed this heinous crime.
“Today’s report was always going to damage the reputation of intelligence services within the RUC/Special Branch and highlight their failures in protecting our communities, but it has also brought to the fore questions that could undermine confidence in the PSNI investigation into the Loughinisand murders.
“We must now use this report to put pressure on the PSNI, the Policing Board and the Minister for Justice, to bring about prosecutions and bring real justice to the victims, survivors, their families and the wider community in South Down. Due to the in-depth nature of this report, and the issues it raises about intelligence policing during Direct Rule, I am also asking the Prime Minister to personally intervene in this particular matter.”
