Former RUC officers have been put in an appalling position with regard to legacy investigations against police

The have been presented with an appalling legacy choice:

Either they are investigated indefinitely by the Police Ombudsman for allegations that might not reach the criminal threshold, with no right of appeal. The recent saga over Loughinisland, where they had to go through three court hearings to get a statement that the ombudsman over-stepped the mark in some findings, illustrated the problems with that option.

Or they were told that they could accept the Police Misconduct element to the proposed Historical Investigations Unit.

Anyone who closely read the essays on that proposal by the solicitor Neil Faris some years ago in our Stop the Legacy Scandal series would have been horrified at the injustice that faced ex RUC if they went sent down that road. More recently Mr Faris and Peter Smith QC emphasised the “very worrying perversion of police power” proposed in the Stormont House legacy proposals. It is almost beyond belief that the police misconduct element came close to becoming law.

Why did the NIO not have top lawyers warning of pitfalls in the Stormont House talks in 2014? If republicans have support to draw on, including the sympathy of Irish officials, why then did London’s department in NI not flag up risks that unionists themselves seemed not to have seen?

And the treatment of retired RUC, some of whose excellent representatives were before the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee of MPs yesterday, is just part of the legacy scandal.

These pages yesterday examined the Gerry Adams ruling ramifications and the ongoing vagueness on whether terrorists injured by their own hand will get pensions.

Even if all of these matters were resolved, other injustices would be outstanding, but could now be resolved by unilateral inquiries into IRA terrorism, to match lavishly funded probes into the state forces.

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