Family of murdered GAA fan to receive damages from PSNI, court hears

The family of a murdered Gaelic football fan who claimed security force collusion with the loyalist killers will receive undisclosed damages from the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), the High Court has heard.

The relatives of 32-year-old Sean Farmer will also receive an apology as part of a settlement reached in their action against the chief constable.

Farmer was shot dead along with his friend Colm McCartney, 22, at a dummy roadblock in Altnamackin, County Armagh in August 1975.

Separately, a claim against the Ministry of Defence (MoD) is expected to go to trial next week.

The two victims, both Catholic, had been returning home from an All-Ireland football semi-final between Derry and Dublin at Croke Park when they were killed.

They were targeted by members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) known as the Glenanne gang.

One of Farmer's sons sued both the PSNI and MoD in a case involving claims of malfeasance in public office.

It was alleged that rogue soldiers and police officers were either involved in the sectarian murder plot or failed to carry out a proper hunt for the gunmen.

Legal action was pursued after a Historical Enquiries Team (HET) report into the shootings identified "disturbing omissions and the lack of any structured investigative strategy".

In court on Friday, counsel for the Farmer family, Des Fahy KC, announced a resolution has been reached in one of the two lawsuits.

"The plaintiff's action against the first defendant, the chief constable, is now settled," he confirmed.

"That settlement includes the payment of damages, and a form of words to include an apology to the plaintiff."

No further details of the agreed terms were disclosed at this stage in the ongoing litigation.

The PSNI said it had settled the civil case and added: "As the case is ongoing, we will not be making further comment at this time."

The now defunct HET - a specialised police unit set up in 2005 to re-examine 3,260 murders - found nothing to suggest either victim had any paramilitary or political connections.

Sean Farmer, a mechanical digger driver, lived with his wife and four sons at Moy in County Tyrone.

Colm McCartney worked as a fitter and lived in Castledawson, County Londonderry.

The HET report concluded that the checkpoint on the night of 24 August 1975 "must have been initiated to target Catholics returning from the Gaelic Football semi-final".

"It is likely that Colm and Sean were the first two unfortunate victims to encounter the gang."

Despite intelligence pointing to the Mid Ulster UVF as the paramilitary group behind the murders, and naming two individuals as allegedly involved, no action was said to have been taken at the time.

HET detectives were unable to find any explanation for the lack of response.

"It is difficult to ascertain that any investigation took place at all, after the initial scene examination," the report said.

The report also highlighted how the terror gang used a similar ploy to carry out the Miami Showband massacre just three weeks earlier.

The report into Farmer and McCartney's murders acknowledged how the victims' families and members of the nationalist community are convinced investigations were not rigorously conducted in a deliberate effort to conceal security force involvement and to "perpetrate a campaign of terror by loyalist paramilitaries against Catholic citizens".

"The HET is unable to rebut or allay these suspicions," it stated.

Based on the investigative failings highlighted, the review body said it had uncovered evidence of security force co-operation with the terrorist killers.

The report added that this "should have rung alarm bells all the way to the top of Government".

"Nothing was done; the murderous cycle continued."

The Glenanne gang were members of the loyalist paramilitary group the UVF.

Members operated from a farm in Glenanne, County Armagh, in the 1970s, and have been linked with multiple murders

Its activities were examined by Operation Kenova, who reviewed 98 incidents resulting in 127 deaths.

In a report published in 2025, it stated "an easily defined discrete Glenanne Gang did not exist."

It said the term had evolved to group together "a broader network" of UVF paramilitaries, who acted with "corrupt" members of the police and army.