A POLICE investigation into a Catholic priest suspected of being involved in the 1972 Claudy bombing was stopped after senior officers conspired with the government and Church to protect him, a shock report has revealed.

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.

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.

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.