Legacy probe into shooting of IRA leader found no 'new or compelling' evidence

Joe McCann’s widow Anne (centre) and family, with their solicitor, Niall Murphy (right), arriving at Laganside Court in Belfast. Picture: Liam McBurney/PA

A specialist police team’s re-examination of the shooting of an Official IRA leader did not find new or compelling evidence to warrant a fresh criminal inquiry, a court has heard.

A former investigator with the team told the non-jury trial of two former paratroopers accused of Joe McCann’s murder that the 2010 exercise had not established a reasonable suspicion that the men were guilty of an offence.