The Claudy bombings of July 31, 1972, in which nine innocent people – five Catholics and four Protestants – were killed in Co Derry are now history, but they have an immediacy with the publication yesterday of the report of the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman, Al Hutchinson.

Outraged relatives of a notorious IRA bombing which claimed nine lives demanded a fresh investigation today after it emerged the police, British government and Catholic Church conspired to protect the prime suspect, a Catholic priest.

Northern Ireland Secretary Owen Paterson said today that the British Government was “profoundly sorry” that the victims of the 1972 Claudy bombing and their families had been denied justice.

A police investigation into a Catholic priest suspected over the 1972 Claudy bomb outrage was stopped after senior officers conspired with the British government and Catholic Church to protect him, a shock new report revealed today.

CARDINAL Cahal B Daly was born in Loughguile, in the Glens of Antrim, on October 1 1917. He was educated at St Patrick’s National School in Loughguile, and then as a boarder in St Malachy’s College, Belfast, in 1930.

Former British Tory party grandee Lord Whitelaw may have been involved in a conspiracy to pervert the course of justice while Northern Ireland Secretary more than 30 years ago, it was claimed tonight.

The British government will be forced to have a Bloody Sunday-style public inquiry into the 1972 Claudy bombings, Democratic Unionist leader the Rev Ian Paisley predicted today.

Demands are being stepped up today for a judicial inquiry into astonishing police claims that the Government and the Catholic Church shielded a priest suspected of orchestrating a bombing outrage in Northern Ireland which killed nine people.

The British Government and the Catholic Church were involved in an astonishing cover-up to shield a priest suspected of heading-up the IRA team responsible for one of Northern Ireland’s worst ever bomb atrocities, police claimed today.