The British government has rejected new demands to dismiss two soldiers convicted of murdering a Belfast teenager.
Armed forces minister Mr Adam Ingram told legal representatives of Ms Jean McBride that Scots Guardsmen Mark Wright and James Fisher would remain in the regiment. One of the soldiers has been promoted to the rank of lance corporal.
The two were found guilty of killing her 18-year-old son, Peter, in 1992.
But just two months after the Court of Appeal found the army had not provided the exceptional reasons needed for allowing both men to continue their military careers, Mr Ingram rejected calls for them to be thrown out.
He said: "There are no plans for the \ board to further review their employment status."
The decision, which also revealed one of the pair had been promoted to the rank of lance corporal, left Ms McBride astonished and bitterly angry.
Earlier this week, she walked out of talks with Mr John Spellar, the Northern Ireland minister who sat on the army board which initially decided not to sack the soldiers.
Ms McBride said last night: "Ingram and Spellar might as well have gone to Peter's grave and spat on it." Her son, a Catholic father of two, was shot as he ran away from a military checkpoint in the New Lodge district of north Belfast.
The soldiers' claim that they opened fire amid suspicion that Mr McBride was carrying a coffee-jar bomb was rejected and they were sentenced to life imprisonment for murder in 1995.
After serving just three years behind bars, they were released and allowed to return to the army.
The McBride family believed they had secured a major victory in their campaign when the Court of Appeal found in June that the army board had not produced the exceptional circumstances needed to justify the soldiers' retention.
Crucially, however, the Ministry of Defence was not ordered to act against Guardsmen Wright and Fisher. Mr Ingram's decision also caused outrage among nationalist campaigners.
As the family took urgent legal advice about mounting a new appeal, the SDLP chairman, Mr Alex Attwood, claimed it was scandalous that the government has ignored the court judgment.
"Recently, a soldier was kicked out of the army for cheating on Who Wants to be a Millionaire?" he said.
"The message could not be clearer: it is not on for a soldier to cheat on a game show, but it is all right to shoot a civilian in the back on the streets of Belfast."
Sinn Féin's north Belfast representative, Mr Gerry Kelly, accused the Government of turning its back on justice. "It is a case where they are clearly stating that it is OK for members of the British army to shoot dead Catholics in cold blood and get away with it," he said. - (PA)