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Comment: a blow for police confidence

A gang of loyalist paramilitaries committed at least ten murders while under police protection in Northern Ireland, a damning report found today.

Downing Street described the findings of the three-year investigation "deeply disturbing" while relatives of those harmed and killed by the informers expressed outrage that no police officer will be prosecuted as a result of the inquiry.

Northern Ireland's Police Ombudsman, Nuala O'Loan, concluded in her 162-page report that officers in the Special Branch of the Royal Ulster Constabulary colluded with members of the Ulster Volunteer Force in north Belfast throughout the 1990s.

More than 100 retired police officers were interviewed, including 24 under caution, as part of the inquiry and several, including three retired assistant chief constables and seven detective chief superintendents refused to co-operate.

Mrs O'Loan said her inquiry, which was immediately rejected by the Northern Ireland Retired Police Officers Association, had been the victim of a "a deliberate strategy" of obstruction from the accused police officers and had been unable to track down crucial evidence, such as sections of murder files and intelligence documents.

Nonetheless, she reported that during their collaboration with the UVF, police handlers destroyed crucial evidence, "babysat" their informers through interviews when they were arrested and allowed their agents to commit 10 murders and 72 other crimes, including drug dealing, revenge attacks and the bombing of Sinn Fein offices. Less reliable evidence linked the UVF members to a further five murders.

The investigation did not name the prime UVF informer, Mark Haddock, who was the leader of the group at the time, but called him "Informant 1". The report revealed that he was paid nearly £80,000 for his co-operation during the 1990s and saw his weekly pay increase within weeks of the murder of a Catholic taxi driver.

Presenting her findings today Mrs O’Loan said that the collusion between the police and the UVF, Northern Ireland's oldest paramilitary organisation, could not have taken place "without the knowledge and support at the highest level of the RUC and the PSNI".

Although she observed that police intelligence gathering had changed greatly since 2003, the last year she investigated, Mrs O'Loan made 20 recommendations for the Police Service of Northern Ireland and urged that murder inquiries be re-opened in cases where she had found evidence of collusion.

Sir Hugh Orde, the chief constable of PSNI, accepted all her recommendations and said: "The report makes shocking, disturbing and uncomfortable reading."

"While I appreciate that it cannot redress some of the tragic consequences visited upon the families of those touched by the incidents investigated in this report, I offer a wholehearted apology for anything done or left undone."

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