A LOYALIST paramilitary gang was involved in up to 15 murders while working as police informers, a damning report revealed today.
The Ulster Volunteer Force members, based in north Belfast, were protected by Special Branch handlers to ensure they escaped prosecution, with vital intelligence withheld from detectives investigating the killings, a three-year inquiry found.
The
man at the centre of Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan's examination of the scandal, identified only as Informant No 1 but known to be ex-terror chief Mark Haddock, was paid at least £79,840 from 1991 to 2003.
The Ombudsman said her investigation established collusion between certain Special Branch officers and the UVF team based in the city's Mount Vernon district.
Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Hain acknowledged that the report made "extremely uncomfortable reading" but said that policing in the province had now changed.
"These things - murder, collusion, cover-up, obstruction of investigations - could not happen today, not least because of the accountability mechanisms that have been put in place over recent years," he said.
And he warned that the report could lead to charges being brought against those involved.
"The fact that some retired police officers obstructed the investigation and refused to co-operate with the Police Ombudsman is very serious in itself," he said.
The Ombudsman's staff identified intelligence in the policing system, most of which was regarded as reliable, linking the informants to the murders of ten people.
They were also associated with another 72 crimes, including ten attempted murders, ten punishment shootings, 13 punishment attacks, a bombing in the Irish Republic, and 17 instances of drug dealing. The investigators also identified less significant and reliable intelligence linking the UVF men to another five murders.
The chilling revelations are massively damaging for policing in Northern Ireland, and a shattering blow to the reputation of the former Royal Ulster Constabulary.
Mrs O'Loan said: "It would be easy to blame the junior officers' conduct . . . however, they could not have operated as they did without the knowledge and support at the highest level of the RUC and the PSNI."
The investigation was the most complex ever undertaken by the Ombudsman, with more than 100 serving and retired police officers interviewed, 24 under caution.
Police computer systems were examined and more than 10,000 police documents recovered.
Mrs O'Loan's inquiry began by examining the murder of Raymond McCord Jnr, 22, a former RAF man found beaten to death in a Belfast quarry in November 1997.
Information held by police, and corroborated by other sources, indicates that Haddock, who was in prison at the time, ordered his murder and that another man, out on leave from jail, carried it out. The suspects were arrested, questioned and released without charge.
The inquiry also looked at the files on the murder of Peter McTasney in Belfast in February 1991. The report revealed that Informant No 1 - Haddock - was arrested and questioned a total of 19 times. His handlers carried out the main interviews.
During their investigation into the double murder of Gary Convie and Eamon Fox, who were shot dead on a Belfast building site in May 1994, the gunman was said to have a goatee beard.
When Informant No 1 was arrested he had such a beard but was allowed to shave it off while in custody, the report alleged.
No identity parade was held and once again the suspect was released without charge.
