Lord Stevens' inquiry into the Finucane murder

In light of growing evidence of collusion between loyalist paramilitary groups and British intelligence, the former Metropolitan Police commissioner Lord Stevens was in May 1999 asked to reinvestigate the murder of Patrick Finucane.

Last year Ken Barrett, the loyalist gunman convicted of killing the Belfast solicitor, was freed under the terms of the Good Friday agreement after serving three years in jail.

But the Finucane family has always insisted Barrett and the Ulster Defence Association did not act alone.

In 2003 Lord Stevens concluded that rogue elements within the Royal Ulster Constabulary and the British army helped loyalist paramilitaries to murder Catholics in the late 1980s - including Mr Finucane and the student Brian Adam Lambert.

Lord Stevens stated: "I have uncovered enough evidence to lead me to believe that the murders of Pat Finucane and Adam Lambert could have been prevented.



Lord Stevens forwarded files on more than 20 former and serving police and army officers to the Crown Prosecution Service.

The evidence Lord Stevens reviewed included information from the journalist Neil Mulholland, who came forward in 1990 with information from a man called William Stobie. Stobie claimed to be a quartermaster for the UDA and an agent of the RUC special branch.

It was established that Stobie had supplied information about a planned murder to the RUC. He also gave information after the killing that never reached the murder team.

Stobie was arrested and charged with the murder following the Stevens investigation, but the trial collapsed when Mr Mulholland was unable to give evidence due to health problems. Two weeks later Stobie was shot dead by the loyalist terror group the Red Hand Defenders.

Lord Stevens also reviewed the role of Brian Nelson. Nelson was a British army agent who became the intelligence officer of the loyalist UDA, where he was effectively in charge of pinpointing potential victims. He is said to have passed Mr Finucane's picture to another person to identify him as a target. He was subsequently convicted of five counts of conspiracy to murder and sentenced to 10 years in prison. He has since died.

Before his murder, Mr Finucane had been identified as a nuisance to the establishment. Three weeks before the murder, Douglas Hogg, then a junior home office minister for the British government, told the House of Commons that certain solicitors in Northern Ireland were unduly sympathetic to the IRA.