‘Latest Tory Troubles plan sends signal to today’s bombers and gunmen: Wait long enough and you might just get away with it’

One is the WAVE Trauma Centre based in Belfast, and the other is Innocent Victims United – an umbrella group of many smaller bodies, led by Kenny Donaldson of the South East Fermanagh Foundation.

A statement from WAVE in the name of chief executive Sandra Peake stated: “The government says it ‘listened carefully to a range of views’ and that this perpetrator-friendly model was ‘the best route’ to give families answers.

“Who did they listen to? Who told them that?

“It certainly wasn’t the families who know that only a process like Operation Kenova is capable of uncovering information that has been hidden for years.

“Moving away from the rule of law in this way will send a message to victims and survivors that what happened to your loved one no longer matters to the state, and to current paramilitaries that if you wait long enough you might just get away with it.”

For IVU, Mr Donaldson said that hundreds of police and army families have been “overlooked by the UK State in its’ supposed quest to offer a form of protection for a minority of soldiers who they claim are being subjected to ‘vexatious pursuance’.”

Ultimately, he said: “We are clear that where wrong was done that this must be accounted for... the rule of law must prevail.

“Often the argument progressed by those with vested interests is that there are victims/survivors who don’t want justice, that they want maximum truth and information.

“We strongly dispute this assertion; we believe it is more so accurate that many families have become conditioned to believe that a criminal justice outcome is no longer possible, and that they should therefore fight for the crumbs of truth and information.

“We more than anyone else desire peace and a society at ease with itself, but we do not subscribe to a phoney peace – we’ve had 25 years of this type of ‘peace’ solution, and it is not working.”

New Tory plan for dealing with Northern Ireland’s legacy of the Troubles rehashes defunct ‘retrieval commission’ deal from 2014