THE Chief Constable of the PSNI has been ordered to disclose evidence in police files regarding the McGurk’s Bar bombing following a Freedom of Information battle that has lasted over four years.
Ciaran MacAirt, a grandson of two of the McGurk’s Bar victims, made the original request for information from the PSNI in December 2020 about the source of police disinformation to a high-level Joint Security Committee Meeting in the aftermath of the atrocity that claimed the lives of fifteen Catholic men, women and children in the UVF bombing of McGurk’s Bar on 4 December 1971.
At this meeting on December 16, 1971, the then Chief Constable Graham Shillington presented a police assessment of the attack to senior security officials and Stormont ministers.
It stated: "Circumstantial evidence indicates that this was a premature detonation and two of those killed were known IRA members at least one of whom had been associated with bombing activities. Intelligence indicates that the bomb was destined for use elsewhere in the city."
Through his investigations MacAirt had traced this disinformation to a secret agreement between the commander of the British Army in Belfast, Brigadier Frank Kitson and the RUC within hours of the explosion.
A log in the Commander’s Diary for 39 Brigade proved that Brigade Commander Kitson informed Brigade staff at 1am on December 5 1971, just over four hours after the bombing: "RUC have a line that the bomb in the pub was a bomb designed to be used elsewhere, left in the pub to be picked up by the Provisional IRA. Bomb went off and was a mistake. RUC press office have a line on it – NI should deal with them."
The PSNI refused a request for the provenance and source of this false intelligence. The Information Commissioner Office (ICO), the statutory authority with the jurisdiction to regulate the FOIA regime, upheld this refusal in February 2023.
With the assistance of KRW LAW, Ciaran MacAirt appealed this decision.
At a hearing in December 2023 he argued why this material should be disclosed to the public. The Tribunal found that the public interest in transparency and closure for victims' families outweighed the reasons for withholding information.
In a significant legal win for the families, the Information Rights Tribunal has agreed that the decisions of the PSNI and ICO were in error of law and has now ordered the Chief Constable to disclose subject to approved redactions the requested material.
Ciaran MacAirt said: “This important win before the Tribunal establishes that PSNI cannot or will not explain the secret agreement between British Army Commander Frank Kitson and the RUC to blame the victims for the McGurk’s Bar Massacre or the following false information disseminated by the British armed forces.
"We have repeatedly asked successive Chief Constables to prove the police lies or admit that the police fabricated them. Each Chief Constable has failed.
"This important win also proves that PSNI not only withheld significant information from the historic investigations, courts and families, but also continues to withhold critical evidence in the mass murder of our loved ones. PSNI chose to cover up for a sectarian police force in the past rather than protect and serve innocent civilians.”
Christopher Stanley, Litigation Consultant, KRW LAW added: “This disclosure further exposes the failure of state agencies, in this instance the PSNI, to recognise processes of information-retrieval and truth-recovery in the out-workings of the conflict.
"Second, the PSNI, at significant public expense, has dissembled – again – to frustrate the FOIA process in this matter. It has admitted there is no prospect of a criminal investigation which further undermines its integrity regarding engagement with relatives of the victims of the conflict in their quest for truth."
