It was the single highest death toll in Belfast during "The Troubles".
The incident was exploited by the British media to discredit the IRA and Sinn Fein, with reports claiming the bomb, disguised as a brown paper parcel, had exploded "in transit" and by the then Unionist Minister for Home Affairs, John Taylor, who claimed that "forensic evidence supported the theory" that the IRA was responsible, because loyalists were "too mature to carry out such an attack."
Seven years later a self-confessed member of the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) Robert Campbell, admitted he was a member of a Shankill Road-based UVF unit which carried out the attack. The original target was "The Gem" in North Queen Street, which the UVF believed was frequented by members of the IRA, however, the UVF was unable to gain access to the pub, and drove a short distance to McGurk's, placing the bomb in the Great George's Steet entrance to the bar.
Following a campaign by relatives of the victims who claimed that the RUC had colluded with the UVF, had failed to investigate the incident properly, and provided false media briefings to suggest it was an "IRA own goal" the Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman, Al Hutchinson, published an 80-page report, on 21 February 2011, which concluded that RUC "predisposition towards the view that the IRA was responsible" led to years of false information and allegations (in the mainstream media andin dozens of books written, prior to 1978, about the origins of the armed resistance) but concluded that while this bias "falls short of collusion, it precluded an effective investigation into the atrocity."
The critical report (available at www.policeombudsman.org/Publicationsuploads/McGurk's) states that the RUC were "confused" by initial information and intelligence and were unduly influenced by suggestions that Republican paramilitaries were responsibe, and that was "in some way understandable given the extent of IRA bombings and attacks at the time."
This led to a failure to properly examine evidence and intelligence attrubuting the bombing to loyalist paramilitaries, while some "inconsistent police briefing" which continued for many years, "inferred that victims of the bombing were culpable in the atrocity."
Three years ago Paul Goggins, the last British direct rule minister responsible for justice prior to the devolution of police and public order legislation to the Northern Ireland Executive earlier this year, apologised on behalf of HMG for the "untrue rumours" circulated in the immediate aftermath of the bombing.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Chief Constable, Matt Baggot, has been criticised for his response to the report. He failed to address the issue of RUC bias in the original investigation (despite being called on to do so by Mr Hutchinson) but used the opportunity to tell the relatives of the victims that "no futher investigative avenues were available" to them, and pointed out that "other reports into the atrocity had reached different conclusions" to Hutchinson's.
Sinn Fein's junior minister on the Northern Ireland Executive, Gerry Kelly, accused Baggot of trying to "defend the indefensible" in refusing to accept the evidence of investigative bias, while the moderate, nationalist SDLP's Alban Maginnis pointed out that the chief constable's response was in "stark contrast" to that of the British Prime Minister, David Cameron, who had accepted the findings of the Saville Report into the Bloody Sunday killings without conditions. Maginnis said it was "not good enough for [Baggot] to be seen to cherrypick findings for the ombudsman [whose] report is the only authoritive and definitive [account of what happened]" and should be relied upon.
Baggot's comments have also been condemned by the human rights organisations, the Pat Finucane Centre and British Irish Rights Watch (BIRW).
Matt Baggott took charge of the PSNI in September 2009, taking over from Sir Hugh Orde. A twenty-year Metropolitan Police veteran, who also served as staff officer to Met Commissioner Sir Paul Condon, before being appopinted assistant chief constable of West Midlands Poice (WMP) in June 1998, and chief contable of Leicestershire Constabulary in December 2002.
Baggott is a "born again" Christian and is president of the evangelical Protestant Christian Police Association (CPA), a group that believes the Bible is the "inspired Word of God without error and is the only complete authority on matters of faith and doctrine." He has a "fondness for quoting the Old Testament" acording to colleagues, and in an article he wrote for the CPA in 2009 he urged police officers to become followers of the Prophet Malachi so "our prayers, attitudes and actions will bring many to the reality and hope of the cross."
Baggott was selected by the Northern Ireland Policing Board (NIPB) — which included Sinn Fein and SDLP representatives — because of his "sensitivity to policing in a diverse society." Several NIPB members are left wondering if he has lost some of the "sensitivity" after less than 18 months dealing with the grim reality of institutional prejudice which still prevail in the PSNI, despite the increased minority community representation.
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