RETIRED police officers are set to challenge a damning Police Ombudsman report which confirmed collusion in the Loughinisland massacre.
Legal papers were lodged with the High Court in Belfast earlier this week in a bid to quash the report’s findings.
Six men were killed when the UVF burst into the Heights Bar in Loughinisland, Co Down in June 1994 during a World Cup match and sprayed those inside with automatic gunfire.
The dead were 34-year-old Adrian Rogan, Malcolm Jenkinson (53), Barney Green (87), Daniel McCreanor (59), Patrick O'Hare (35), and Eamon Byrne (39).
Dr Michael Maguire’s report, which was published in June, lifted the lid on collusion between police officers and loyalists as well as a catalogue of failures by RUC investigators.
It also emerged that a suspect in the attack was an informer and that police failed to probe claims that an officer warned a suspect they were about to be arrested.
The wide-ranging report also delved into the activities of a UVF gang that operated in south Down more than two decades ago and confirmed that two of the weapons used at the Heights Bar were smuggled into the north with the help of British agents.
The findings were accepted by PSNI chief constable George Hamilton and former British Prime Minister David Cameron.
But the Northern Ireland Retired Police Officers Association, which is made up of former members of the RUC and PSNI, is now challenging the report.
Mr Rogan’s daughter Emma reacted angrily to the planned court action.
She said relatives were "devastated and furious that a report that has been accepted by the chief constable and Prime Minister David Cameron in private correspondence" would be challenged by former police officers.
“It’s beyond belief,” she said.
In a letter to South Down MP Margaret Ritchie last month Mr Cameron offered his “heartfelt condolences and sympathies” and described the gun attack as an act of “unspeakable evil”.
“The government accepts the Police Ombudsman’s report and the chief constable's response and we take any allegations of misconduct very seriously,” he said.
The retired officers association has previously attempted to challenge ombudsman findings.
In 2014 an attempt to launch a legal challenge to a report identifying police failures around an IRA bomb that killed three neighbours in Derry in August 1988 was dismissed for being brought out of time.
The previous year the association also threatened to boycott investigations by the ombudsman.
Not all former officers connected to the Loughanisland investigation co-operated with ombudsman investigators.
Solicitor Niall Murphy, who represents relatives of those killed, last night criticised the legal action.
“The families, having gone through the torturous process they have endured in trying to recover the truth of what happened in Loughinisland, are now confronted with this misconceived application to quash the report.”
Relatives for Justice director Mark Thompson also described the case as an attempt to undermine the Police Ombudsman.
A spokesman for the Police Ombudsman said of the legal challenge: “We are aware of it and are considering it.”
The Northern Ireland Retired Police Officers Association did not respond to requests for a comment.
