Report will call on PSNI to reopen murder cases

A POLICE Ombudsman press conference in Belfast today, into allegations of RUC collusion with loyalist paramilitaries in 18 murders between 1990 and 2003, will hear calls for a public inquiry into the activities of the North’s police.

Naula O’Loan’s office has spent four years investigating the activities of Special Branch and their relationship with a UVF gang, based in the Mount Vernon estate in north Belfast.

Her report, made public today, concluded that senior Special Branch members protected their agents within the UVF from prosecution even when they knew murders had taken place. The probe was sparked over allegations that Raymond McCord Jr, a 22-year-old Protestant man beaten to death by the UVF in north Belfast in 1997, was killed by a police informer.