Former Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan calls for public inquiry into the murder of a GAA official Sean Brown in 1997

Sean Brown was shot after he was abducted by the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) in 1997.

On Tuesday, it emerged that documents shown to an inquest into Mr Brown's death revealed 25 people were linked to his murder – and among them were state agents, a counsel for the coroner said in an update at the Royal Courts of Justice.

The inquest into the 61-year-old's death opened in March 2023 and it is scheduled to resume next month.

Before this happens, sensitive material relating to the murder must be security-vetted and distributed to the legal parties involved – and this public interest immunity process in the case has been taking place in closed hearings in recent weeks.

Speaking on BBC Good Morning Ulster, Baroness O'Loan, who investigated the death in 2004, said she found it "incredible that 27 years on police have finally found information".

"I haven't seen the documents that were disclosed yesterday but I do know there were 19 pieces of intelligence made available to me and that six of them related to and provided helpful information around the murder and its investigation," she said.

"That material should have been available to the coroner without any difficulty so that means there are 25 new people linked to this murder.

"This must have been known at the time and I think it's terrible, and most terrible I think for the Brown family. I don't know how some of these families keep going - 27 years to wait to find out this information."