After 20 years and an unceasing family campaign, the Government has finally done the decent thing and expressed its “deep regret” at the death of Aidan McAnespie, the young man shot dead as he walked through a checkpoint at Aughnacloy in February 1988.

Significantly, two Cabinet ministers, NI Secretary Shaun Woodward and Defence Secretary Bob Ainsworth put their names to the statement. Their statement was graciously accepted by the McAnespie family, who showed very little rancour for the wrong that was done to their family through the shooting of an entirely innocent man.

The ministers’ statement follows an investigation by the PSNI Historical Enquiries Team (HET) which appeared to dispute the long-held version of the shooting. It was officially argued that the soldier involved had been moving a machine gun inside an Army sangar at the checkpoint when it slipped due to his wet hand and went off killing, Mr McAnespie who was nearly 300 metres away. The HET described this account as “the least likely version” of what had occurred. Other possible scenarios was that the soldier fired deliberately or that he was “tracking” Mr McAnespie and was unaware that the gun was cocked when the trigger was pulled.

Given the HET’s report, it is somewhat surprising that the ministers’ statement did not include an apology, but the McAnespie family have nevertheless taken it in the spirit in which it was delivered. It is not as if the Government has never apologised to wronged families before. Tony Blair apologised to the families of those killed on Bloody Sunday in Londonderry. The official verdict on those deaths is still awaited from the Saville Inquiry. There were apologies also to the families of those killed in the bombing of McGurk’s public house in Belfast, which the Army tried to portray as an IRA own-goal, when it was in fact a loyalist attack — and to the Conlon and Maguire families, wrongly jailed in England when anti-Irish sentiment was at its highest following several IRA atrocities.

The McAnespie case proves a point made by Lord Eames and Denis Bradley in their controversial report into how to deal with the legacy of the conflict here. As they said, sometimes the families just want official recognition of the wrong done to them and as full an explanation of what happened as possible. While there remains a dispute over exactly why the fatal shot was fired, the HET findings and the Ministers’ statement have brought some solace to Mr McAnespie’s ageing parents. Ideally, they should have had the evidence tested in a court of law 20 years ago, but a charge of manslaughter brought against the soldier then was dropped. He was later medically discharged from the Army.

There are many other families in Northern Ireland who lost loved ones during the conflict at the hands of soldiers, police or terrorists. They too would like to hear the circumstances of why their relatives died and who, at least in general terms, was responsible for the killing. That could bring closure to them. Others, as is their right, would still like to see the perpetrators brought to court. With the passage of time, that becomes a more and more unlikely outcome. The only thing that is certain is that no inquiry, no investigation, no court case, no government statement can ever bring back the lives so cruelly cut short or ease the suffering of the families involved.