Press conference:Nuala O'Loan's three-year inquiry into RUC-loyalist collusion was the best example of independent oversight, it was claimed yesterday.
Sam Pollock, chief executive of the Police Ombudsman's office, said the investigation was the largest, costliest, most complex and most sensitive yet undertaken by Mrs O'Loan.
Her chief investigator, Justice Felice, said the findings were not based on intelligence but on corroborated materials including 10,000 documents, computers and interviews with officers. He said there was a pattern of work to protect UVF leader Mark Haddock, known as "Informant 1".
Senior officers showed what he called "an obvious lack of enthusiasm for co-operation with the Police Ombudsman". Some 40 officers refused to be interviewed by Mrs O'Loan's investigators, including three assistant chief constables, seven detective chief superintendents and detective superintendents. Others responded to her inquiries in a "farcical" manner or in a way that showed contempt for the law.
"On occasion those answers indicated either a significant failure to understand the law, or contempt for the law," he said.
Addressing the report at its release yesterday, Mrs O'Loan described a culture within the RUC in which special branch occupied a unique position, with other departments in a subservient role.
She said there was an absence of controls. "There was no effective strategic management of these informants. As a consequence of the practices of special branch, the position of the UVF, particularly in north Belfast and Newtownabbey, was consolidated and strengthened over the years."
This happened because there were "very few rules" employed by special branch, she said. Mrs O'Loan said the blame for collusion could not be left at the lower ranks within the police.
"They could not have operated as they did without the knowledge and support at the highest levels of the RUC and PSNI."
Aware that such police practice took place against a backdrop of conflict, Mrs O'Loan added: "I can understand how difficult it was. What I cannot understand now, given the level of knowledge and the intelligence that was building in the system, is that they just continued to employ these informants."
Much intelligence about Haddock's behaviour was disregarded, she said. Mrs O'Loan added that many of the guidelines employed by police forces and used widely throughout the UK were not employed by special branch.
She detailed other shortcomings in the "running" of informants by the RUC. These included the failure to hold reviews of agents between 1991 and 1999, the production of misleading reports and the destruction of logs and records.
Evidence was retained by informant handlers, and this was part of a "strategy" and was not any form of "oversight".
Although justification was sought concerning the "handling" of Haddock, none was given. No action was taken regarding him and this could only be regarded as collusion, she said.