Not for the first time we see acknowledged the inevitable corruption of the moral standards of state forces when drawn into the ethical morass of running informers and double agents. The report of the North's Police Ombudsman, Dr Michael Maguire, in its unambiguous finding of "collusion" by police and army, by commission and omission, in the 1994 Loughinisland killings is an indictment not just of their role in that tragic episode but of a still largely closed chapter of the North's dirty, hidden war.
“Many of the individual issues I have identified,” Maguire writes, “including the protection of informants through wilful acts and the passive turning a blind eye; fundamental failures in the initial police investigation and the destruction of police records, are in themselves evidence of collusion ... When viewed collectively, I have no hesitation in saying collusion was a significant feature of the Loughinisland murders.”
We must not lose sight of the fact that the bloody murders of six Catholic men in The Heights Bar were the acts of a vicious sectarian UVF gang. But it is now confirmed that at least two of the guns used were procured for the UVF by police agent Brian Nelson with the knowledge of his paymasters; that one of the murder suspects was probably a police informant; that the Special Branch continued to use him after the killings because officers "placed more value on gathering information and protecting their sources that on the prevention and detection of crime"; that Special Branch kept local police in the dark about key elements of this and other inquiries; and that lines of inquiry were botched or never followed up ...
“Given the gravity of the conspiracy and the impact it had on the lives of numerous citizens, this decision [to conceal information from fellow officers] has proven in my view to be indefensible,” Maguire says.
Ballistic records show that the same imported assault rifles were used by Loyalist paramilitaries in more than 70 murders and attempted murders in the North from March 1988.
He acknowledges that “We have seen occasions when informants contributed to both the saving of life and the loss of life”. But, he says, the RUC did not have the checks and balances in relation to the handling of informants that now exist. Guidance sought from government, was not forthcoming. Importantly, however, Maguire found no evidence the security forces were aware the UVF were planning to mount the attack.
Yesterday’s report is an important and welcome vindication of the tireless campaigning of victims’ families, evidence once again that the inconvenient past will not simply go away with time, but must be faced up to. And that the institutions of the state, no less than the paramilitaries, must account truthfully for their history if they are to be a trusted part of the new dispensation.