Legal proceedings were launched in the High Court in Belfast in the wake of a 2011 report by the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) which said the killings raised “disturbing questions about collusive and corrupt behaviour”.

Three members of The Miami Showband – Fran O’Toole, Brian McCoy and Tony Geraghty – were killed by members of the loyalist Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in July 1975 in an apparently botched attempt to frame the band for smuggling explosives across the border.

Three members of the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) were convicted in connection with the attack, but for decades the two surviving band members and the families of those killed have sought to uncover the truth about the involvement of British security forces.

The 2011 HET report linked one of the murder weapons used in the attack to Robin “The Jackal” Jackson, a notorious UVF man alleged to have been an RUC Special Branch agent. It noted that Mr Jackson claimed to have been told by a senior RUC officer to lie low after the killings.

Mr Jackson was eventually acquitted in November 1976 on a charge of possession of a silencer, which was attached to a pistol used in the killings and was found to have his fingerprints on it.

Survivors Des McAlea and Stephen Travers, and the families of victims Fran O’Toole and Brian McCoy, were represented by Belfast solicitor Michael Flanigan in the High Court action which came to an end yesterday.

Mr Travers has been awarded £425,000 in damages and Mr McAlea has been awarded £325,000. The family of Mr O’Toole will receive £375,000 and the family of Mr McCoy will receive £325,000.

An award-winning documentary about the 1975 killings, ReMastered: The Miami Showband Massacre, topped Netflix charts in the UK and Ireland in 2019.