Fifty year wait to hear the words - 'entirely innocent'

CLASPING pictures of their murdered relatives and punching the air in jubilation they walked out into the sunshine with the verdict they have waited 50 years for - the 10 people killed in Ballymurphy were "entirely innocent".

Even during its previous incarnation as a music venue where delirious teenagers watched their idols perform, the International Conference Centre has not witnessed the levels of joy and relief that radiated from the Ballymurphy relatives yesterday.

Time and again during their evidence, they had told the coroner Mrs Justice Siobhan Keegan that they wanted their family members' names to be cleared, for the world to know they were victims of the Troubles, not the terrorists they had been branded.

For every one of the almost 100 days of evidence the relatives walked together to the inquest at the Laganside Courts complex, a representative of each of those killed holding a large black and white picture of their loved one.

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They had carried them for the final time into the former Waterfront Hall building yesterday to hear the judge deliver her findings.

Now designated a Nightingale venue for the courts service, one of its cavernous conference halls had been reassembled as a makeshift courtroom for the occasion.

The walls were shrouded with black fabric and around 60 utilitarian purple and chrome waiting room-style chairs were arranged into family bubbles, three rows deep, in front of a raised dais.

Along the back wall, Formica tables - designed to be slotted together for group meetings - were spaced out at coronavirus appropriate intervals for journalists.

Instead of her usual `bench', Mrs Justice Keegan, dressed in sombre black, was seated on the dais behind a re-purposed office desk, complete with an anglepoise lamp.

Despite the large number of people in the room, as she delivered her findings in a calm, clear voice it would have been possible to hear a pin drop, so absolute was the silence.

They had waited for 50 years to hear these words and no one was going to miss a syllable.

On Monday the relatives had been in good spirits about the prospect of vindication at last for their loved ones, but after so long fighting for the truth a jangle of nerves when the day dawned was inevitable.

The coroner had considered the five separate shootings between August 9-11 which killed the 10 victims and delivered findings for each in turn, starting with Francis Quinn and Fr Hugh Mullan, who died together in waste ground, then moving on to Noel Phillips, Joan Connolly, Daniel Teggart and Joseph Murphy who were all shot in the `Manse field', followed by Eddie Doherty who was killed on Whiterock Road, then John Laverty and Joseph Corr who were shot at `Mountain Loney', and finally John McKerr who was killed on Westrock Drive.

She began with a warning that "in some cases it is impossible for justice to be done", with the passage of five decades leading to evidence possibly from "false memory or coloured by a narrative that is part of community consciousness".

However, in each case her forensic analysis of the evidence offered - and not offered in the case of many military witnesses - led her to conclude conclusively that "all the deceased were entirely innocent of any wrongdoings on the day in question".

In the immediate aftermath of the shootings the army had proclaimed it had successfully killed members of the Provisional IRA.

It was a lie that would have been easily disproved with the most cursory of investigations.

Among the dead was a mother-of-eight Joan Connolly, herself the mother-in-law of a solider who had made tea and sandwiches for the young servicemen when they arrived and had only been out because she was searching for her children in the chaos that followed the introduction of internment.

Another victim was a popular priest, described as a "peacemaker" by the coroner, about whom the military itself had sent letters after his death providing "an indication of the esteem in which he was held".

Another was a former British army veteran and proud member of the Royal British Legion who lost a hand fighting in World War II.

Indeed links with the British army were literally in the DNA of many of those gunned down by high velocity bullets during those 36 hours, with their own service history or family members in the armed forces.

All 10 were unarmed.

But like many lies, it was halfway round the world before the truth could get its boots on and it was a smear that has haunted the families for generations.

During the almost three hours it took to deliver her findings Mrs Justice Keegan expressed her contempt for the repeated failing by the authorities to investigate the killing of civilians on the streets.

She pointed out the failure of the soldiers to contest the compelling evidence of civilian witnesses and indeed the strength and coherence of their testimony over the 16 month inquest, coupled with supporting forensic evidence, ensured that the truth finally had its boots on.

As the coroner revealed her findings, one by one the lies were dismantled and obliterated to applause from the room, each family sharing the joy of the others as their loved one's reputation was restored and history was rewritten.

And so they left the darkened courtroom and stepped out into the light, bearing pictures of their beloved dead.

They were the same black and white images they had begun carrying proudly 30 months ago when the inquest opened, but this time all were inscribed with an extra word.

Innocent.