Grieving families of three British soldiers murdered in an IRA 'honey-trap' have blasted the police for refusing to re-examine the deaths.

Fusiliers Dougald McCaughey, 23, Joseph McCaig, 18, and his brother John, 17, were executed on a remote mountain road in Northern Ireland on March 10, 1971.

The off-duty troops were drinking in Belfast bars when three men 'befriend' them before luring them to their deaths with the promise of meeting young women at a party.

They were lined up at the side of the road and shot in the back of the head at close-range at White Brae in Ligoniel, overlooking north Belfast.

No one has ever faced trial for their cold-blooded murders, even though one IRA terrorist confessed his role in the plot and named two accomplices during a Scotland Yard-led investigation 46 years ago.

Relatives are angry that the Police Service of Northern Ireland has snubbed calls to re-examine the case or identify the two unnamed killers.

The Three Scottish Soldiers Campaign For Justice Group, co-led by Fusilier McCaughey's 50-year-old cousin David, is unveiling a £100,000 crowd-funding initiative.

It aims to raise the money needed to start the work necessary to bring those responsible for the murders to justice.

Mr McCaughey, from Rutherglen in Scotland, who was only three when the soldiers were murdered, said: "It is a wound that has never ever healed.

"This cannot go on any longer. The PSNI should now re-open the case to help give the families answers.

"They deserve justice. Instead, their killers have spent the intervening years enjoying their freedom in Ireland without fear of being prosecuted.

"At the very least, the boys' families and loved ones, as well as the general-public, deserve to know who was responsible for their murders.

"One of those involved actually made an admission, although he said he hadn't pulled the trigger. Now he's safe in the Republic of Ireland."

Families believe the authorities should be forced to re-open the investigation in the hope of bringing prosecutions.

A 2012 report by Northern Ireland's now-axed Historical Enquiries Team (HET) - set up to review every single death during the Troubles - identified four IRA terrorists as prime suspects in the killing.

Anthony Doherty - who admitted his guilt after being arrested in 1971 before breaking out of Belfast's notorious Crumlin Road prison - and two unnamed IRA men are understood to still be alive in the Republic of Ireland.

The fourth killer, Patrick McAdorey, was shot dead later the same year.

Now bereaved relatives are launching a legal battle to try to bring the living murderers to justice.

Kris McGurk, 25, a former British soldier who is spearheading the campaign, said: "It is disgusting that the PSNI are burying their heads in the sand.

"Our Government has also done nothing to bring the murderers of these young men, who pledged to serve their country only to be murdered in cold-blood, to justice.

"If the authorities will not act, then their family and loved ones will instead.

"It is a scandal that UK veterans of our Armed Forces are being pursued for actions they took under orders and in the fight against terrorism.

"Yet IRA terrorists have been granted amnesties and allowed to live out their days without fear of prosecution. This discrimination must end and the scales of justice rebalanced.'