Letter: Jon Boutcher and Nuala O’Loan are wrong to blame the prosecutors on Kenova decision

Jon Boucher, the leader of the Kenova investigation into the IRA agent Stakeknife, and Baroness (Nuala) O’Loan, who was a member of the International Steering Group in Operation Kenova report, are now behaving like the parents of a pupil who did not get the exam results they expected by blaming the examiners for his/her failure.

Kenova submitted their homework to Public Prosecution Service (PPS), seemingly confident that it was top-class evidence, however, the PPS examiner did not agree and, the parents (Boucher and O’Loan) have been clearly implying that it is the ‘examiner’ (PPS) who is wrong!

On Radio Ulster last week Jim Gamble, a respected retired RUC Assistant Chief Constable, challenged both Boucher and O’Loan on this explaining how the PPS works and the threshold for prosecution.

His opinion was that the Kenova files did not meet that threshold. The PPS has said as much as well.

It seems that Mr Boucher and Baroness O’Loan are now trying to justify the £40 million spent on Kenova by blaming the PPS.

The final Kenova report should include an annex showing exactly where this £40 million went.

The breakdown of the total amount of money should include total payments to key members of the Kenova investigation.

We are all suffering from ‘austerity’ so we have a right to know how this large sum of public money was spent, so that we can assess if it was justified, and compare it to the seemingly small amounts of money spent on investigations that are solely looking at the terrorism of IRA, the organisation that killed by far the most people in the Troubles.

Tom Nash, Derriaghy