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LAST UPDATE | 1 hr ago
THREE TEENAGERS, A father-of-six and a Catholic priest were unarmed and posed no risk when they were shot by two British Army soldiers at two locations in Belfast almost 54 years ago, a coroner has ruled.
Father Noel Fitzpatrick (42), Patrick Butler (38), John Dougal (16), David McCafferty (15) and Margaret Gargan (13) were killed in the Springhill and Westrock areas of Belfast on 9 July 1972.
The shootings became known as the Springhill massacre.
Delivering his judgement at Belfast Coroner’s Court this afternoon, Mr Justice Scoffield said the two soldiers “overreacted and lost control”.
He said Noel Fitzpatrick and Patrick Butler were killed by the same bullet as the former looked left and the latter looked right as they attempted to cross the road from an alleyway.
David McCafferty was seeking to retrieve the body of the priest when he was shot in the back, the coroner said. A soldier who took the shots that killed all three, known only as Soldier A, was less than 100 metres away at Corry’s Timber Yard, where the soldiers were based.
The coroner concluded that the soldier “fired prematurely”, “lost control” and shot without having first made an assessment of the risk, if any, they posed.
He said he was satisfied that no warning was given, and that the three deceased were not carrying a weapon. He said even if the soldier believed he needed to use force to defend himself, the force used was not reasonable.
A soldier known only as Soldier E, who was also located at the same timberyard as Soldier A, shot Margaret Gargan in the head while she stood on a pavement and spoke to friends, the coroner said.
He was unable to conclude whether John Dougal, was armed when he was shot. He said the teenager was a member of the junior wing of the Provisional IRA but said on balance he concluded he had not progressed into the ranks of the adult IRA.
The coroner said even if John had been in possession of a firearm, he was not using it and was likely running away when he was shot in the back.
He said: “With John Dougal shot in the back as he ran from the area and taking into account the requirements of the yellow card, the force used by Soldier A was not reasonable.”
Mr Justice Scoffield rejected the explanation that the soldiers were reacting to a mass “coordinated” attack on the timberyard, and said the brigade radio logs “hugely undermine” that narrative.
He said he also rejected the civilian case that “not one shot had been fired” by civilians before British Army soldiers began firing and said that was “much too simplistic an analysis”.
He said that while soldiers may have been influenced by civilian firing, they were not responding to “a coordinated attack by a mass of gunmen”.
He said he was also struck by the “youth and inexperience” of soldiers sent to serve in Belfast, as well as their “ignorance” of the political context.
He said the soldiers based in the woodyard had been apprehensive about the breakdown of an IRA ceasefire and had been “expecting an armed attack and were, no doubt, nervous and fearful of such a possibility”.
The inquest concluded in April 2024, just hours before the former UK government’s guillotine on conflict-related court cases as part of new legacy laws came into effect.
It was the last of the coronial investigations into Troubles-related deaths completed before the 1 May deadline of the Legacy Act, which is currently being reviewed under the Labour government.
It had been a fresh inquest ordered by Northern Ireland’s attorney general in 2014 after an original inquest in 1973 returned an open verdict.
This morning, there was applause as families and friends of the deceased gathered at Belfast Coroner’s Court for the long-awaited findings. They walked together holding a banner which read “time for truth”.
The group included former Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams, West Belfast MP Conor Maskey and People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll.
Before reading out his findings, which number some 640 pages, Mr Justice Scoffield apologised to the families for the length of the wait, saying he had taken some time to consider matters.
Earlier in a joint statement, the Butler, Gargan, Dougal and McCafferty families said they “stand together after almost 54 years of grief, loss and unanswered questions”.
“The deaths of our loved ones that occurred at Springhill and Westrock on 9 July 1972 have cast a long shadow over our lives,” they said.
“Each of those who died was an individual – deeply loved and still deeply missed. For us, this is not history; it is something we have lived with every day.
“We have consistently maintained that those who died were innocent civilians, and that the force used on that day was indiscriminate and unjustified.
“For over five decades, our families have raised serious concerns that those initial investigations failed to properly establish the truth.
“We now await the coroner Justice Scoffield’s findings.
“We do so with both hope and apprehension – hope that the findings will reflect the full circumstances of what happened, and apprehension because of the weight this moment carries for all of our families.”
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