Editorial: Former RUC officers live for years in fear of legacy trials but IRA terrorist godfathers do not

News Letter editorial on Monday July 17 2023:

For seven years an anti-terror police officer has feared prosecution for shooting a notorious IRA murderer.

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

In 2016 relatives of Marks claimed that a new forensic examination suggested he might have been shot in the back. That year the then Attorney General John Larkin asked prosecutors to review a previous decision not to prosecute any police officers in relation to the death. Also in 2016, the Police Ombudsman launched a probe into the killing that lasted years.

Disgracefully, it has taken seven years for these claims to reach a point where they have been dismissed by prosecutors. Today the ex officer speaks to this newspaper about his scandalous treatment.

This is not a novel case. In 2018 the News Letter reported on our front page 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. Barely any other media outlet picked up the story, and it was another couple of years before he found he was not being prosecuted.

While much of the government's legacy bill is welcome, such as taking RUC cases out of the ombudsman's office, whose handling of legacy claims should have been subject of a review, ministers have not re-balanced legacy. IRA godfathers such as Martin McGuinness, Brian Keenan, Kevin McKenna and Billy McKee enjoyed de facto amnesty on both sides of the border long before the 1994 IRA ceasefire. After decades of pre-meditated murder they did not fear trial. It is ex security forces who fear trial, or as soldiers have found, go to it.