Family urges Heath: tell us what you know

The father of a nine-year-old girl killed in the Claudy bombing today called on former Prime Minister Edward Heath and his Defence Secretary Lord Carrington to say what they knew about the atrocity.

Bill Eakin, whose daughter Kathryn was among the victims of the 1972 blast, said if there had been a cover-up “I would be very annoyed”.

He added: “It is a strong possibility, but I can’t prove it. But I always felt why was nothing done? There seemed to be nothing happening at all.

“I call on those who were in authority to answer the questions raised by this investigation.”

Mr Eakin said he was “very pleased” with what Sam Kinkaid had told the group of 30 relatives today.

“They are pointing in the right direction and I will give them more time to sift through the information.”

He said he was now more hopeful that the bombers were still alive, and would be brought to justice.

“Why should they be walking around when we live our lives in a terrible state?

“I hope I live a few years more to hear the end of this investigation.”

His wife Merle said Mr Kinkaid’s information had been very distressing.

She called for a full public inquiry like that being carried out currently into the Bloody Sunday killings.

“I would like it to be like Bloody Sunday, with the same finance as Bloody Sunday.”

News that a priest was involved in the murder of her daughter had stunned her, she said.

“I really can hardly believe that a man in such a position can do something like that.”

Now the lid has been lifted on the case by the police, she felt confident that they would not stop until they got all the truth.

“Police are trying their best and are not going to let go this time until they get to the bottom of it.

“Thirty years is a long time. We suffered and we have had so little attention. We need to be looked after better than we have been.”

She said there were people around Claudy who were involved in the bombing.

“If they don’t face justice in this world they will face it in the next.”

Holding back the tears, Mrs Eakin revealed that she and her husband had made their regular pilgrimage to their daughter’s grave on the way to today’s meeting at a hotel outside Derry.

“It is a very emotional, the same Christmas present every year – a bunch of flowers.”

Many of the relatives left the hotel deep in thought and unprepared to comment about what they had been told.

But Samuel Reilly, who lost part of his leg and suffered head injuries in the bombing, said: “It broke my heart today. There was some heartbreaking information in there. I feel rotten.

“Everybody in Claudy was innocent, got on the best, and they lost nine lives.”

He too had confidence the police service would not let the matter drop, and the remaining bombers would be brought to court.

“I would like to see them get justice, those who were responsible for it.

“I would like to see them get life in jail for what they have done – they killed a wee girl of nine-years-old.”

Mr Reilly said his understanding was that there were two of the bombers still alive, but that they were no longer in Northern Ireland.

Mr Kinkaid, speaking at the news conference after spending 75 minutes with the families, revealed he had made an official apology for the lack of action over the decades.

He said: “When I spoke to the families earlier I apologised for the fact that, from my perspective, there were opportunities to arrest and interview suspects that weren’t taken.”

But he added: “You have to realise knowing someone was involved in some sort of offence is not the same as having evidence in law to arrest and charge them.”

He said the families had responded with dignity to what he had told them. “These are a very restrained and very responsible group of people who I think have suffered for a long time with great dignity.

“It is quite clear the police should have been talking to them much sooner than this.”

Mr Kinkaid would not be drawn on whether he was seeking to speak to Mr Heath or Lord Carrington.

But he did add he was “seeking information from the authorities in London”.