Ex-top RUC man: Will Labour back public inquiries for other families

Alan Mains, an ex-detective superintendent who served as an officer from 1978 to 2007, was speaking as Labour’s shadow NI secretary Louise Haigh added her voice to calls for a full public inquiry into the killing of Mr Finucane – a lawyer who rose to prominence by acting as an advocate for a number of republican paramilitaries.

Last February the Supreme Court ruled that investigations into his 1989 shooting had fallen short of international human rights standards.

Today Ms Haigh published a letter to Boris Johnson, saying it has long been Labour view that “an independent public inquiry is the only remaining mechanism which can establish the full truth”.

Ms Haigh added: “The long years since the ceasefire and the Good Friday Agreement have served to demonstrate that, unless justice is done, and seen to be done, the wounds of the past simply will not be allowed to heal.”

The government is expected to decide on whether to pursue an inquiry next month.

Mr Mains, whose uncle in Special Branch was killed by the IRA (with the culprits never caught), told the News Letter: “I think rightly a lot of people will ask the question: If she is prepared to do that, is she prepared to support other victims? Police families, security families, innocent people?

“Is she prepared to support them for an inquiry of their unsolved murders?”

He said “to bring [Troubles probes] to a satisfactory conclusion is virtually now impossible with the passage of time”.

He added that the Finucane killing was already a “very well researched and investigated case,” adding: “I understand the family, I understand where they’re coming from... however, as an investigator previously, I understand the effort that’s gone into this has been tremendous from an investigative point of view.”

Collusion has been widely cited as a feature of the loyalist killing of Mr Finucane.

Mr Mains also pointed to the Smithwick Tribunal, which found Irish state collusion in the murders of Harry Breen and Robert Buchanan – the two highest-ranking RUC men killed by the IRA.

They too died in 1989.

He noted the unwillingness of IRA men to give public evidence to that inquiry.

Ex-top RUC man: Will Labour back public inquiries for other families – not just the Finucanes?