It is alarming that an ex RUC officer has been investigated for 17 years

This retired detective supervised the handling of the UVF informant Gary Haggarty.

He speaks today to the News Letter for the first time about the trauma of being subject to such an investigation. The officer, who feels he has been “hung out to dry” for doing his job, was in his 40s when this began and is now in his 60s.

How many other people in the entire UK have been subject to the agony of such a seemingly endless investigation?

It is also alarming to hear that he was arrested in an operation that included a large uniformed police contingent. Think of the outcry there would be if an IRA leader was so treated.

This case is all the more remarkable by the fact that a decision was taken last October by the then DPP Barra McGrory that Haggarty’s claims alone were not sufficient grounds to prosecute any officer. This was challenged by one of the victims’ families in the High Court, where last month prosecutors said they would review the decision, as is ongoing.

This saga is the latest in a long line of troubling legacy developments, including the recent episode in which a judge stood aside from a case when he was accused in court of bias, after he issued a scathing criticism of the Ombudsman’s findings of ‘collusion’ in the Loughinisland cases.

It raises grave questions about the limited processes that are available to people who are investigated by the Ombudsman’s office to raise any concerns or complaints that they might have about the handling of those investigations.

It also raises serious questions about coming legacy structures, agreed in outline in the 2014 Stormont House deal.

It is utterly inadequate for a Conservative government propped up by the DUP to say that the current consultation on the mooted structures is “meaningful”. The public need detailed assurances from those who drew up the structures that investigations will be proportionate and fair.