There were many grimly familiar elements to the Police Ombudsman’s report on the police response to the appalling La Mon atrocity which left 12 innocent people dead and over 30 seriously injured.
Key documents from the original RUC inquiries have gone missing, most of those responsible for the 1978 carnage at a hotel outside Belfast were never brought to justice and both survivors and relatives of the victims had deep concerns that a number of the perpetrators were protected because they were state agents.
However, the Ombudsman’s office has still been able to offer at least some new information to the grieving families and to conclude that, while the investigation was plainly flawed, there was no evidence to suggest that collusion was a factor in the case.
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What has always been clear is that the IRA carried out a cruel, shocking and reckless attack, preceded by a pathetic nine-minute warning, which was bound to result in death and destruction on an enormous scale.
A large bomb, attached to cans of petrol mixed with sugar, was placed outside a window of the hotel, sending a massive fireball into a function room where up to 400 people were attending a dinner organised by the Irish Collie Club.
Read more: RUC Special Branch carried out 200 La Mon suspect interviews
The large complex was turned into an inferno, and it was almost miraculous that there were not more than the 12 fatalities, who included three married couples and were from all from a Protestant background.
A complaint was made about the initial investigation by the Ulster Human Rights Watch group, which included statements from both survivors and relatives of the victims.
While the La Mon investigation was plainly flawed, there was no evidence to suggest that collusion was a factor in the case
Paul Holmes from the Ombudsman’s office said it had not been possible to establish why RUC documentation could not be found, and explained how this had hindered the tasks faced in the course of the review.
Mr Holmes also said that the police investigation had been “compromised” by the acquittal, in 1980, of a man charged with the bombing, after the trial judge found he may have been tortured during his detention.
What the La Mon catastrophe demonstrated yet again was the incalculable level of suffering inflicted on the entire community by prolonged and completely unjustified paramilitary campaigns on the part of both republicans and loyalists.
It took many decades and thousand of funerals to establish that the use of the bomb and the bullet produced only horrendous consequences, and that all our issues must be resolved by purely constitutional means.
We may have an imperfect peace today, surrounded by occasionally dysfunctional political structures, but we owe it to the victims of La Mon and many other atrocious events to ensure that the dark days of the past can never return.
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