Ruth Dudley Edwards: Colm Murphy was a monster who brought tragedy to countless good people newsletter.co.uk - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from newsletter.co.uk Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
Imagine the pain of a daughter, whose mother was killed by army bullets in 1971, having to plead her innocence in front of television cameras this year.
That has been the experience of Briege Voyle, one of eight children of Joan Connolly, a woman from Belfast who was killed in the Ballymurphy Massacre 50 years ago. It was only last week that a judge ruled that the 10 people shot by British Army paratroopers, including Mrs Connolly, were “entirely innocent”. They had been killed after an operation was launched against members of the Irish Republican Army.
It is natural and only right that a state should seek to acknowledge both its wrongdoing and responsibility when innocent people are killed by its forces. Yet in Northern Ireland, that is a deeply controversial issue – hence the five-decade wait.