Fury as Finucane inquiry files lost

Files detailing the exact cost of a multi-million pound investigation into allegations that security forces plotted with loyalist paramilitary killers have been lost, it emerged today.

Police could only track down financial records for the latest of Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens’s three inquiries since he began examining Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane’s murder.

Outraged unionists accused the authorities of trying to cover up a huge drain on public money.

Nearly £4.5m (€6.46m) has been spent on Stevens's third investigation which found widespread collusion between Special Branch, military intelligence and the Ulster Defence Association gunmen who killed Mr Finucane in February 1989.

But efforts to uncover the full costs of the 14-year probe have drawn a blank.

The Policing Board was told by the Police Service of Northern Ireland its papers only date back to 1999.

In a letter to members, a senior official on the monitoring authority said: “Despite extensive searches the account files for earlier inquiries cannot be located.

“It has only been possible for police to provide the costs for Stevens III.

“In April 1999 the finance function of the former Police Authority transferred to the then Royal Ulster Constabulary.

“It is assumed the files also moved but as a consequence of the reorganisation they cannot be located.”

Sammy Wilson, a Democratic Unionist board member opposed to the Stevens investigation, claimed the authorities were too embarrassed to reveal a total bill he believed was close to £15m (€21.6m).

“People are trying to run away from revealing the full costs of this politically motivated inquiry,” he said.

“Stevens has been running for more than a decade and it’s an absolute scandal that no one can tell us how much money has been spent.

“It is being passed between the policing board and the PSNI because they know there would be a public outcry if the truth emerged.”

Mr Wilson also claimed the figures were being hidden because Chief Constable Hugh Orde has already admitted the killings of 180 police officers during the Northern Ireland conflict will remain unsolved.

“Police men and women would be livid if they knew about this when their colleagues’ murders will not be investigated to the same extent.”

A police spokeswoman insisted none of the documents passed to the force in April 1999 had been lost.

She said: “The PSNI have all the financial files relating to the Stevens inquiry since it became the responsibility first of the RUC and then the PSNI.”

Alban Maginness, a senior member of the nationalist SDLP which has backed the collusion probes, insisted all costs were worthwhile.

He said: “Anybody that thinks the Stevens inquiry is not a serious, properly constituted police investigation is quite wrong and being quite perverse.

“Much of what was alleged has been validated by Stevens and the costs are justified in terms of getting at the truth.”