Statement by TUV West Tyrone Assembly candidate Trevor Clarke:
“I am deeply disappointed by today’s announcement by the Attorney General that there will be no new inquest into the brutal murder of Ian Sproule.
“Castlederg suffered dreadfully during the IRA’s terror campaign but even by their standards this murder was particularly callous. Ian was just 23 when he died in a hail of 44 bullets. In a particularly cruel twist the family home received a phone call telling them to go out and see what the IRA had left them on the street.
“That was bad enough but in the aftermath of the murder an inaccurate Garda file was leaked to the press in a vain attempt to justify the unjustifiable.
“There has never been justice for Ian Sproule and his family. The questions about how a Garda file made its way into the hands of IRA terrorists have never been answered. Yet in the blizzard of legacy inquests currently before the courts and coming before them in the weeks and months ahead there will be none for the Sproule family.
“This does nothing to increase confidence in the judicial process and feeds not just disappointment but anger among innocent victims who have been failed by the state once again.
“Selective justice is fundamentally wrong and is compounding the hurt suffered by the families of innocent victims of terrorism. The Sproule family have been the victims of Garda-IRA collusion, a continuing Irish State cover-up, and in this latest development a failing in the criminal justice system. The family are determined to pursue justice to its conclusion, and they will have my unwavering support in doing so.”