Editorial: Ex RUC hero officer has faced yet another year of agony fearing trial for killing IRA murderer when the IRA themselves have no such fear

A police officer who shot dead a notorious IRA terrorist has spent most of the last year again fearing prosecution – as he had done in preceding years.

‘Officer B' was cleared of wrong-doing after he shot dead the murderer Colum Marks in Downpatrick in 1991 when police and prosecutors then accepted that he feared his life was at risk as Marks advanced at him in poor light, and ignored shouts to stop.

But in 2016 relatives of Marks claimed that a new forensic examination suggested he might have been shot in the back. The Police Ombudsman launched a probe that lasted years. The then Attorney General John Larkin also asked prosecutors to review a previous decision not to prosecute any officers in relation to the death.

It took seven long years until these claims were dismissed by prosecutors last year. But that decision was challenged and it has taken almost a year for the prosecutorial decision to be upheld.

As ever, the News Letter is almost alone in covering these scandals, such as our 2018 report that an RUC agent handler had by then been investigated for almost 20 years by, initially, the Police Ombudsman, over claims from a disgruntled UVF murderer that he could have prevented murder. Yet while these scandals get little mention outside our pages, immediate media attention is given to cases in which state wrongdoing is upheld.

These disgracefully slow investigations happen while IRA leaders enjoy de facto amnesty on both sides of the border, above all in a hypocritical Republic that harboured IRA terrorists by not extraditing them long before the Belfast Agreement, then gave them an undeclared amnesty afterwards, yet now sues the UK on legacy.

Unionists have failed to demand a review of the ombudsman’s office and a way to appeal its findings. Meanwhile, state forces who professionally saw off IRA-led terror deserve thanks.