TOP lawyer Michael Mansfield QC helped bereaved families relaunch a campaign for justice last night against the British army.

Five people, including three teenagers and a Catholic priest, were shot dead by British snipers at Springhill estate, Belfast, in 1972.

Forty-seven years later their relatives gathered at the Culturlann community centre on Falls Road to demand answers.

The incident took place six months after Bloody Sunday and the deceased were Margaret Gargan, 13, John Dougal, 16, David McCafferty, 14, Patrick Butler, 38, and Father Noel Fitzpatrick, 42. 

In 2014, Northern Ireland’s Attorney General John Larkin ordered new inquests.

However these are yet to take place, with the British government and its DUP partner blocking funds for legacy inquests into scores of Troubles-related deaths.

Committee on the Administration of Justice deputy director Daniel Holder has warned that: “Funding these inquests is an international human rights obligation.”

Mr Holder said bereaved families “have waited long enough” and the government “needs to act now.”