A coroner has named a British soldier who shot dead a father of six outside a Belfast police station after mistaking a van backfiring for a gun attack.

Now deceased Sergeant Allan McVitie, from the Parachute Regiment, fired two shots that killed van driver Henry Thornton in 1971.

Coroner Brian Sherrard had already ruled the paratrooper's actions were not necessary, reasonable or proportionate.

Today, he lifted an anonymity order that had prevented Mr McVitie's identity being revealed to Belfast Coroner's Court.

Mr Thornton, who was 29 at the time, died almost instantly when the soldier shot him through the back of his Austin works van close to Springfield Road police station in west Belfast in August 1971.

Mr Thornton, from Silverbridge, Co Armagh, and his colleague Arthur Murphy were driving to work early in the morning when the incident unfolded outside a police station that was repeatedly attacked during the Troubles.

Mr Sherrard delivered his preliminary findings last year. The only addition in his finding ruling was the insertion of Mr McVitie's name.

The coroner acknowledged that the paratrooper chased after the van with the "honestly held belief" that shots had been fired at the police station.

However, he said his decision to open fire himself was not justified, even if the occupants had been armed.

The coroner said there were other non-fatal options open to the soldier.

No weapon was found in Mr Thornton's van.

"There is no evidence that Sergeant McVitie considered a less forceful response to the situation than the death of the driver," said the coroner.

Mr Sherrard added: "The shooting of Mr Thornton was neither a necessary nor reasonable nor a proportionate response to the situation that Sergeant McVitie actually encountered or thought he encountered."