A DUP MP and a group who represent several of the families involved in the La Mon House hotel bomb have hit out at what they have described as the inequality of treatment of victims after it emerged yesterday that the victims of Bloody Sunday will be offered £50,000 each in compensation.
This weekend will see the 35th anniversary of the IRA’s bombing of La Mon House on the outskirts of east Belfast where 10 people died in an inferno.
Speaking to the News Letter from the Philippines where he now lives, Terry Lockhart said he was offered just £90 for the loss of his wife Christine in the bombing.
There has never been a public inquiry into the La Mon House atrocity, in sharp contrast to the £200 million Saville Tribunal into the events of Bloody Sunday.
Yesterday it emerged that the families of those killed by soldiers on Bloody Sunday have been offered £50,000 each in compensation.
Thirteen people died in the Bogside area of Londonderry on January 30, 1972 when paratroopers opened fire.
The families of those 13, as well as 13 others who were seriously injured, have been offered £50,000 each as part of a total compensation package from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) worth around £1.3 million.
But a solicitor for one of the families said the offer was derisory and an insult to those killed. There have been months of discussions between lawyers for the MoD and the families’ legal teams.
Kate Nash, whose brother William was killed and father Alex injured, said: “My brother cannot be replaced and all the money in the world won’t bring him back.”
She said she was simply interested in accountability and not money.
The Saville Report into Bloody Sunday was published in June 2010, prompting Prime Minister David Cameron to apologise to the families and describe the killings as “unjustified and unjustifiable”.
The massive document, which took 12 years to complete at a cost of £195 million, was heavily critical of the Army and found that soldiers killed people without justification.
Yesterday DUP MP Gregory Campbell and victims group Ulster Human Rights Watch – who represent several of the families of the La Mon victims – reacted to the compensation plan, questioning why other victims were given so much less.
Mr Campbell said: “One of the reasons that Bloody Sunday and the investigations into it have caused so much controversy is the view that it has been an entirely one-sided process.
“The Saville Inquiry focused entirely on what happened that day whilst ignoring the backdrop at the time and particularly the IRA’s activities in the days and weeks before.
“On the back of Saville we also have the prospect of soldiers facing criminal charges whilst IRA personnel, whose terror activities caused the soldiers to be deployed in the first instance, have not thus far been subject to the same investigation. Now we have yet another example coming forward where compensation will be made to families in one particular incident whilst there are countless others whose relatives were maimed or murdered yet have received either token amounts or nothing.”
Mr Campbell said the family of anyone murdered deserves to be compensated, adding: “But with the issue of Bloody Sunday there must be a demonstration that everything which occurred will be investigated and not this partisan and unacceptable approach.”
This Sunday will see the 35th anniversary of the La Mon House bombing. It is widely recognised as one of the most shocking atrocities of the Troubles, yet will not be marked with any official remembrance service.
Ten men and women died and 30 were left seriously injured when a giant firebomb engulfed a room in the hotel where the annual dinner dance of the Irish Collie Club was taking place. Some of the dead were so badly injured that their bodies could only be identified by blood tests or a process of elimination.
Some of the families of those killed were offered £90 in 1980, two years after the attack. Terry Lockhart, who lost his wife Christine in the blast, told the News Letter that he felt so disgusted with the authorities that he left Northern Ireland, vowing never to return.
In a statement, the Ulster Human Rights Watch said: “Real victims of terrorism, like those murdered by the IRA at La Mon, continue to be despised by the authorities in that they receive no compensation, no in-depth investigations, no publicity and no duty of care in direct comparison with those victims of Bloody Sunday who were killed in controversial circumstances, involving terrorists, by the Army, who are elevated, continually cosseted, given public inquiries at massive expense, apologised to by the Government and now offered substantial compensation.
“The inequality of treatment between these two types of victims cries out for an immediate remedy by our Government and the victims of La Mon atrocity now call for an independent inquiry into their case led by legal experts.”