Failings in the original police investigation into the Kingsmill massacre, one of the worst atrocities of the Troubles, led to 11 suspects not being arrested, a watchdog’s report has found.
Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland Marie Anderson on Tuesday published her detailed analysis of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) inquiry into the murders of 10 Protestant workmen in Co Armagh by the IRA almost 50 years ago.
It identifies a litany of RUC failings including “missed investigative opportunities and inadequacies” in ballistics, forensics, fingerprints, palm prints and witness enquiries.
A minibus taking the men home from work at a textile factory was stopped by a group of armed men posing as British soldiers on the Kingsmill Road, Co Armagh, on January 5th, 1976. They asked each of the workers on board their religion.
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The only Catholic passenger was told to leave and the remaining 11 men were shot multiple times. Only one man, Alan Black, survived, despite being shot 18 times. No one has ever been convicted of the murders.
The watchdog report was carried out in response to complaints made by bereaved relatives and Mr Black.
It exposes “wholly insufficient” police resources being deployed to the case, with the detective leading the investigation assisted by a team of only eight officers.
“This was supplemented for only a matter of weeks by two teams of about eight to 10 detectives from the RUC’s regional crime squad. This was entirely inadequate,” Mrs Anderson said.
The ombudsman team found there were more than 60 individuals listed in RUC files as suspects during the force’s investigation. Of these, nine were arrested in January 1976 and another one the following month. An 11th arrest took place 10 years later in August 1986.
The report notes that RUC detectives failed to “arrest and interview 11 men identified by intelligence” about the killings, while the original investigation also failed to exploit ballistic links with other attacks in which the same weapons were used.
The failure to ensure all suspects were subject to fingerprint and palm print checks was “significant”, the report states.
“I believe the original police investigation failed to properly consider the value of the palm print from the minibus which was probably used to facilitate the movement of the killers before and after the Kingsmill attack,” Mrs Anderson said.
Police officers who attended the scene immediately after the attack were “faced with one of the worst terrorist incidents to occur in the Troubles”, and “conducted themselves in a professional manner, identifying witnesses, recovering evidence, and conducting other enquiries in the area”, she added.
She recognised “the intense pressure and strain” that officers were under in 1976, the second worst year of the Troubles in terms of deaths.
“By today’s standards, the investigative resources available were wholly insufficient to deal with an inquiry the size of the Kingsmill investigation,” Mrs Anderson said. “The situation was exacerbated by a backdrop of multiple terrorist attacks in the south Armagh and south Down areas that stretched the already limited investigative resources available even further.”
However, she concluded that complaints in relation to the conduct of the original police investigation were in large part “legitimate and justified”.
Concerns about police collusion were also raised by the families in their complaint.
Due to a recent High Court ruling, Mrs Anderson said she was prevented from offering a view on conduct constituting collusion or “collusive behaviours”.
Mr Black, who was present at the Police Ombudsman Office in Belfast for a briefing on Tuesday in advance a summary of the report being published, said he felt vindicated by its findings.
He was accompanied by relatives of John McConville, one of the 10 men who died.
“Back in the day, in the ’70s, a policeman would put on his uniform in the morning not knowing if he’s going to come home that night. So I’ve got nothing but respect for them,” Mr Black told reporters.
“But this investigation, it points to something like the Keystone Cops and that’s all to do with the police handing their notes to their superiors, who hands them on, who hands them on, who then says ‘No, we can’t go down that road’.”
The 10 men who died were Robert Chambers (18), John Bryans (46), Reginald Chapman (29), Walter Chapman (35), Robert Freeburn (50), Joseph Lemmon (46), John McConville (20), James McWhirter (58), Robert Walker (46) and Kenneth Worton (24).
