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FAMILIES described their loved ones who were murdered by British soldiers in the Ballymurphy massacre almost 50 years ago as the inquest continued in Belfast today
The inquest into the killings, which took place in August 1971, heard statements about 20-year-old John Laverty, killed on the Whiterock Road, and 49-year-old John McKerr, killed in the Ballymurphy estate a day later.
Mr Laverty’s sister, Carmel Quinn, said her brother was “not just another statistic of the conflict.”
She added: “We lost our brother but we also lost our mummy and daddy.
“Their grief was added to by the lies they read in the paper about their son, they functioned, but their hearts were too sore to find any joy.”
Mr McKerr’s daughter, Anne Ferguson, told the court about her father, a former British soldier who served in the second world war.
“He was proud of his military career and was a member of the British Legion. He would not have wished to be associated with any paramilitary or terrorist organisation,” she said.
British paratroopers shot dead 11 people on the Ballymurphy estate in Belfast in a two-day killing spree. Many claimed the culture of impunity led to the Bloody Sunday murders in Derry the following year.
