‘IRA chief who killed my father deserved to be shot’

wrongdoing. So why after all these years are they being re-investigated?

“It seems to me like they are being hounded just for doing their jobs. It is diabolical and disgusting after all this time. They are old guys now. What purpose is it serving?”

She added: “We knew that McCann was killed a year after my father died and the two others were killed later. As far as I know, all the people responsible for my dad’s death are now dead.

“I believe in karma. And that what goes around comes around. If he killed my dad, then he got what he deserved.

“I feel sorry for the families of these two soldiers who have been charged. It is not good for them to have this raked up again. I hope they get off.”

The decision to prosecute Soldier A, who is 67, and Soldier C, aged 65, was taken by the Public Prosecution Service ‘I have no memories at all of my father … I had to rely on what my mother told me about him’ of Northern Ireland and followed a review of the case in 2010 by the Historical Enquiries Team (HET).

An HET report says three soldiers fired at McCann, who was unarmed, as he tried to flee. He was hit by two or three bullets and was pronounced dead in hospital. The soldiers had attempted to resuscitate him but to no avail.

But the report paints an incomplete picture of what happened as key participants in the events leading up to McCann’s death have not been traced.

McCann, who was never prosecuted for any killings before his death, was regarded by security forces as a “dangerous terrorist and someone who would be armed and who would not hesitate to use his weapon to resist arrest”, according to the report.

He was wearing a disguise, having dyed his hair, when he was spotted by two special branch officers with the Royal Ulster Constabulary. They summoned the soldiers to assist them in detaining McCann. Critically, those special branch officers remain unidentified, and authorities investigating McCann’s death, it is understood, have been unable to trace them. Sources have also suggested ballistics reports no longer exist, making it impossible to know which soldier fired the fatal shots.

An initial investigation into the shooting in 1972 cleared all three soldiers of blame. They had protested that they feared McCann may have been armed and that he was leading them into an ambush.

The HET report states: “The HET cannot be sure who the two special branch officers were. They are not named in any reports or documents” and concludes: “This review concludes there are no new lines of enquiry or investigative opportunities that can bring more clarity to the circumstances of Joe’s death.” But the dead man’s family Anna-Marie Bankier’s father, Robert, became one of the first British soldiers to be killed in The Troubles when he bled to death after being shot in the leg while patrolling the streets of Belfast in 1971 began their own campaign for justice, and in 2014 passed details to Northern Ireland’s Attorney General requesting a further inquest.

That led to a file being passed to the prosecution authorities leading to charges against Soldiers A and C. Soldier B, who had been living abroad, has since died.

The prosecution authorities maintain that the decision to prosecute was reached following an objective and impartial application of the test for prosecution and in accordance with senior counsel advice.

Miss Bankier, who has an older brother Robert, 50, was only a few days short of her second birthday when her father was killed, leaving her mother Cathie widowed with two young children.

Miss Bankier said: “I have no memories at all of my father, so when I was growing up I had to rely on what my mother told me about him. She always said that he was a good person and was brilliant with kids who always flocked around him.”

Her parents met on an Army base in Germany and married soon after. The family moved around the world and lived in Northern Ireland until a week before her father’s death, when he sent them back to England.

Miss Bankier said: “My mother used to say it was because she thought he had a feeling that something was going to happen. I presume it was because he didn’t like the way things were going as it was getting worse over there.”

Miss Bankier said that all she had been told about her father’s death was that he was patrolling in a square in a jeep when he was shot in the leg.

He tumbled out, dragging wires from his patrol’s radio, which meant they could not immediately call for medical help. He bled to death at the scene.