McConville inquest hears evidence from son

A son of IRA murder victim Jean McConville has begun giving evidence to the inquest into her death.

Arthur McConville told the inquest in Dundalk, Co Louth, that he heard banging on the door of the family home in Belfast’s Divis Flats on the evening of her abduction on December 7, 1972.

He said he opened the door to find four men and four women wearing balaclavas outside.

The group told Ms McConville to put on her coat and told the children she was only being taken for questioning.

Mr McConville said he tried to go with his mother, but when he got to the bottom of the stairs, he was ordered back into the flat at gunpoint.

He said he had seen 18 to 20 people wearing balaclavas waiting outside the flats complex. Ms McConville, a mother-of-10, was executed by the IRA on suspicion of being a British army informer.

Her remains were found last August on a beach in Co Louth.