Lawyers for Belturbet Bombing Victims Call for UK Government Transparency

London: KRW Law argue that there was collusion between the UK State and loyalist paramilitaries in the planning and operation of the detonation of the bomb which killed the 15-year-old Geraldine O’Reilly and 16-year-old Paddy Stanley on the 28th December 1972, and that there were serious investigative failings by the authorities in the decades following the bombing. Families of two victims of the Belturbet bombing have called for transparency from the UK government in the wake of a new documentary about the 1972 atrocity. The families of  victim Geraldine and Paddy took part in an RTÉ documentary about the bombing which was broadcast south of the border on Monday 14th December 2020.

Liam Diver of KRW said: “It is unacceptable for families of the victims to be told they have to wait until 2057 before release of documents and information which would help provide closure to them. This unjustified denial of access to justice creates the context for families to resort to litigation. It is equally appalling to learn that the UK Secretary of State Brandon Lewis could dismiss such legal actions as ‘vexatious’. The families of Geraldine O’Reilly and Paddy Stanley, like so many others, will continue to use whatever legal or other remedies are available to them to fight for answers. It is equally regrettable that the state has tried to sidestep its legal and moral obligation to provide answers by asserting that cases involving State-loyalist collusion in the Republic of Ireland should be issued in Dublin and not in Belfast.”

Families of the victims and survivors of the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings are in the middle of an ongoing High Court battle challenging the UK government’s argument that Belfast is not the correct jurisdiction to take these cases. Mr Diver said: “Absolutely nothing has been done by gardaí in the last four decades to help these families get the necessary closure they need. Effectively all such families have been badly let down by both the British and Irish authorities. Just how badly they have been let down will be exposed in the course of all pending High Court litigation.”

Source: Irish Legal News