MIAMI Showband bass player Stephen Travers demanded transparency from the British state 44 years after its involvement and subsequent cover-up of the massacre of three musicians in the north of Ireland.

Mr Travers survived the 1975 attack which happened as the band — one of Ireland’s most popular — were travelling back to Dublin after a gig in Banbridge, Co Down.

Three of his bandmates, lead singer Fran O’Toole, trumpeter Brian McCoy and guitarist Tony Geraght, were killed when members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) opened fire at a bogus army checkpoint just outside Newry.