BBC News
Published
media captionBrandon Lewis said the PM would write to the families
The UK government profoundly regrets and is truly sorry for the events surrounding Ballymurphy in 1971, the NI secretary has told Parliament.
Brandon Lewis said this also extended to the families for the additional pain they have had to endure and at how investigations were handled.
An inquest found 10 people, who were shot in the wake of an Army operation in Belfast, were entirely innocent .
One of the victims relatives asked why the apology was not made by the PM.
Briege Voyle, whose mother Joan Connolly was killed, said the families had to find out from a journalist that Mr Lewis was making the statement.
Brandon Lewis says British government ‘truly sorry for Ballymurphy deaths as family repeats call for apology from Boris Johnson Ian Knox cartoon 12/5/21 Jonathan McCambridge, PA
The Ballymurphy families after hearing Tuesday s inquest inquest verdict. Picture by Hugh Russell
The British government is “truly sorry” for the events in Ballymurphy 50 years ago in which 10 innocent people were killed, Secretary of State Brandon Lewis has said.
On Tuesday, coroner Mrs Justice Keegan found that those who died in Belfast in August 1971 were “entirely innocent”.
She found that nine of the 10 had been killed by soldiers, and that the use of lethal force was not justified.