Analysis: Stevens made for extraordinary reading, writes Dan Keenan, Northern News Editor
This was not the first time that something suspected became something known. Yet for all that, the "shock of the expected" was evident as Sir John Stevens, Britain's most senior police officer, addressed yesterday's press conference. One colleague yesterday recalled the term "glasnost" and applied it to the extraordinary proceedings.
Sir John confirmed that the security forces colluded in the murder of the innocent, that they had covered it up and had worked to frustrate inquiries led by him to uncover the truth. His findings point to security force operations which were dirty, illegal and out of control and which led to the deaths of innocents.
Constrained, he said, by the need to respect ongoing legal cases and with some 57 files sent to the DPP, Sir John managed to distil three inquiries, 14 years of investigation and more than a million pages of documents and other physical evidence weighing more than four tonnes into 20 pages of "overview and recommendations". The full - and private - version of his interim report runs to 3,000 pages.
The PSNI Chief Constable, Mr Hugh Orde, will have the job of acting on that. His comments implore the people of Northern Ireland to look to a future clearly delineated from the past and where proper standards of policing apply. However, there is no escaping the awfulness of the era which both men insist is now firmly in the past.
Sir John referred to a Northern Ireland where elements within RUC Special Branch and the British army's Force Research Unit (FRU), which handled counter-terrorist intelligence, improperly ran double agents, withheld intelligence and leaked other details to frustrate his inquiries.
He was satisfied Catholics did not receive the same protection as Protestants from the security forces, which had recruited loyalist killers as informers and protected them.
Crucially, Sir John does not state that the widespread collusion was institutionalised throughout the security forces, nor does he state how far up the political chain of command responsibility runs. This has enraged relatives of some of those murdered and prompted politicians to call for their questions to be answered.
The revelation that some 57 files have been sent to the DPP puts additional pressure on that office to address the fact that no successful convictions have flowed from the Finucane case.
Similarly, Judge Peter Cory, the Canadian charged with investigating this and five other cases to see if a judicial inquiry is justified, will face new demands for a wider, independent and international investigation.
Work on the implementation of Sir John's 21 recommendations will be subjected to review next January.
Sir John's findings will come as no surprise to Mr Orde, having helped co-ordinate the investigation that led to them.
He rightly states that he heads perhaps the most scrutinised police service in Europe. The PSNI is monitored by the Inspectorate of Constabulary, an Oversight Commissioner, a Policing Board and a Police Ombudsman, to say nothing of a host of NGOs and the soon-to-be convened District Policing Partnerships.
The Stevens inquiry has shown that, even though some key questions remain unanswered, the establishment does have an ability to blow the whistle on itself. Allegations once denounced as republican propaganda are now accepted as fact and a road map to better policing has been pinned up for all to see.