Relatives of people killed in the McGurk’s Bar atrocity have threatened legal action against former Stormont minister John Taylor.
Mr Taylor, who is also known as Lord Kilclooney, provoked anger this week after he appeared to question the innocence of 15 Catholics killed in the massacre on social media.
Fifteen civilians, including two children, were killed when the UVF detonated a bomb in the North Queen Street bar, in north Belfast, in December 1971.
Security force claims that the IRA was to blame were later shown not to be true.
Mr Taylor, who was a Stormont minister at the time of the atrocity, wrongly said it was an IRA bomb that exploded prematurely.
The former MP caused controversy this week when responding to a post by an account entitled Séamus Bryson’s Attic Trapdoor that referenced the “innocent people murdered in the McGurk’s”, and also urged him to apologise for previous remarks made.
In response the Mr Taylor said: “You claim they were innocent.”
The following day another post by the same account again referenced the “innocents of the McGurk’s atrocity” to which Mr Taylor replied “you clearly do not understand the word ‘innocent’”.
Mr Taylor has commented on the McGurk’s Bar massacre on social media in the past.
In 2018 he was criticised for claiming the bar was a “drinking hole for IRA sympathisers” who have run a “political campaign to place the blame on the UVF”.
A year earlier he refused to apologise when challenged online over declaring the atrocity was an IRA ‘own goal’.
Solicitor Kevin Winters, of KRW Law, said action will now be taken against Mr Taylor “over his previous and ongoing repetition of the IRA ‘own goal’ myth”.
Mr Winters said one of his clients Pat Irvine, whose mother Kitty was killed, is “completely exasperated at the insistent stance taken by Taylor”.
“We can confirm we are preparing pre-action legal correspondence alleging harassment by Mr Taylor over certain online posting remarks made by him,” he said.
“We expect to be in a position to issue formal court proceedings in the next few weeks.
“Central to the case is the insinuation that the deceased were somehow not innocent of the atrocity.”
Mr Winters said a Police Ombudsman report “dismissed any unsubstantiated niggling doubts about this”.
“Our clients have been retraumatised by repeat allegations made and have been left with little alternative but to resort to litigation,” he said.
When contacted Mr Taylor said: “No comment after over 50 years.”
