Judge submits his assessment of ‘new’ Stardust evidence

AN ASSESSMENT of a dossier of ‘new evidence’ into the cause of the 1981 Stardust disaster has been submitted to the Government by Judge Pat McCartan.

In a move that took the Stardust Victims’ Committee by surprise, Judge McCartan confirmed to their solicitor that he sent his review of the evidence to the Minister for Justice yesterday.

Antoinette Keegan, a spokesperson for the Stardust families, said they had not been expecting the judge to finalise his report until the end of this month and believed that they still had time to make further submissions.

The committee had sent in a final submission to Judge McCartan yesterday evening to highlight certain aspects of evidence they believe is crucial to the review, including a previously undocumented 999 call on the night of the disaster.

“While all these elements formed part of our original submission, we felt that we needed to re-emphasise the importance of a number of points,” Ms Keegan said. “We were hugely taken aback to learn today that the judge has already sent his assessment to the Minister for Justice.

“We sincerely hope that the matters we raised in our latest submission have been carefully considered by Judge McCartan. If not, we are asking that he recalls his report immediately.”

Judge McCartan had been asked to carry out a review of the Stardust Victims’ Committee’s evidence after a Government motion was passed on the issue in January of this year. His brief is to establish if there is sufficient scope for a Commission of Inquiry into the fire based on the evidence submitted by Stardust campaigners and their experts.