Former RUC chief constable Sir Ronnie Flanagan tonight resisted demands for his resignation over revelations that police in Northern Ireland protected a loyalist murder gang.
He came out fighting amid a barrage of criticism over how Special Branch handlers in Belfast paid and shielded a terrorist informer involved in up to 15 killings.
Sir Ronnie, who was chief constable at the height of the UVF unit's bloody campaign, faced a clamour to explain what he did and did not know.
Nationalist MPs and a UVF victim's father, appalled by the level of collusion, called for him to quit his current post as head of Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary.
SDLP leader Mark Durkan said he has written to Prime Minister Tony Blair urging him to sack Sir Ronnie if he does not stand down.
But Sir Ronnie insisted that he knew nothing about the disclosures made by Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan.
Denying any suggestion that he refused to co-operate with the three-year inquiry, he said: "With respect to the specific matters dealt with in the Ombudsman's report, at no time did I have any knowledge, or evidence, of officers at any level behaving in the ways that have been described.
"I would find such conduct to be abhorrent, and if such behaviour took place my hope would be that it would be the subject of criminal or disciplinary proceedings."
Raymond McCord - who triggered the Ombudsman's investigation with his complaint that Special Branch agents beat his son Raymond to death in 1997 - Sinn Féin chief negotiator Martin McGuinness and Mr Durkan were all scathing towards the former chief constable.
The SDLP leader stepped up his attack after Sir Ronnie's denials by referring to Mrs O'Loan's assessment that the scandal could not have happened without knowledge and support at the highest levels of the RUC.
"I warned Tony Blair that Ronnie Flanagan's appointment as Inspector of Constabulary would come back to haunt him. Today it has," the Foyle MP said.
Mrs O'Loan's investigation, Operation Ballast, identified Mark Haddock as the key agent running the UVF gang in north Belfast's Mount Vernon estate.
He was paid at least stg£80,000 and protected from prosecution by Special Branch handlers who destroyed evidence, tipped him off and guided him through sham police interviews throughout a catalogue of murders stretching back to the early 1990s.
It emerged today that the former terror boss is under armed guard in hospital. Haddock (37) was transferred from his prison cell to undergo new surgery.
Up to four police officers are understood to be stationed round-the-clock at his ward in Belfast's Royal Victoria Hospital.
Months before he was jailed for 10 years last November for attacking a nightclub doorman, former associates tried murder him.
Haddock was shot six times in May after going to a rendezvous near Doagh, Newtownabbey, Co Antrim. Although he survived the gun attack, it left him with serious injuries. It is believed he will need a colostomy bag for the rest of his life.
Meanwhile, Assembly members in Belfast may hold an emergency debate on how loyalists were allowed to carry out a decade of murders.
Both Sinn Féin and the SDLP have urged authorities in the transitional parliament at Stormont to hold a special session on the revelations about the RUC's intelligence systems.
The disclosures come as Sinn Féin prepares to debate leadership proposals to finally endorse Northern Ireland's policing arrangements.
Although it is not expected to derail Gerry Adams plans, the party is seeking an immediate opportunity to discuss the implications.
PA