McGurk’s Bar bombing: Court tells PSNI Chief Constable to give HET report to relatives

PSNI Chief Constable Matt Baggott has been ordered by the Belfast High Court to hand over a Historical Enquiries Team report into the December 1971 loyalist bomb attack on McGurk’s Bar that left 15 people dead.

The controversial report was completed in December 2012 yet Matt Baggott has refused to give it to the families of the dead. He claimed detectives were pursuing further evidential leads.

But, in the High Court in Belfast on Tuesday 5 November, lawyers for Bridget Irvine (whose mother Kitty died in the blast) challenged Baggott, claiming he is under “a public law duty to disclose the report without delay”.

The court granted the PSNI a two-week adjournment to carry out further work on the report but relatives are hopeful that they will be given a copy of the report before the court sits again on 19 November.