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Ballydugan Four

I thank my hon. Friend for his wise words. There are not enough adjectives to describe that loathsome person, Colum Marks, the officer commanding the IRA in South Down, and all the others involved in those murders and all the others during the troubles.

Nine people were arrested—I have read the historical inquiry report. One was charged with a minor charge and did a certain amount of time, but the person who killed the four UDR men was free, until one fateful day for him in Downpatrick. As he was setting up a horizontal bomb to attack and kill even more people in Downpatrick, he was caught in the act of trying to kill other UDR men and other police officers and shot. Justice was done in that he came to the end of his reign. It is pity it did not happen a wee bit earlier, before the four UDR men were murdered and all the other actions he was involved in.

That is the legacy left by Colum Marks, whereas the legacy left by Lance Corporal John Bradley, Private John Birch, Private Michael Adams and Private Steven Smart is one of honour, of sacrifice, of dignity, of strength and of great love, not only for their families but for their country. That is the legacy that I and my colleagues on both sides of the Chamber stand to protect and reiterate today. Let me be rightly understood—I am reiterating the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley)—that Colum Marks and the rest of his abhorrent repugnant ragtag bunch deserve nothing other than the label of what they were: odious, filthy scum.