An allegation that police in Northern Ireland colluded with an IRA killer to prevent his being charged with murder because he was an informant was dismissed by Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan yesterday.
The investigation had found no evidence police colluded to protect the gunman who shot and wounded a magistrate and killed his daughter in 1984, she said.
But for the second time in a week she criticised the Special Branch, saying it had failed to pass on all the information it had that could have been relevant to officers investigating a murder.
Tom Travers and his family were attacked as they left Mass at St Brigid's Roman Catholic Church in Derryvolgie Avenue.
Two men shot Mr Travers six times and fatally wounded his daughter Mary. A woman, Mary Ann McArdle, was arrested as she walked a dog along the nearby Malone Road. She was found with two handguns, hidden in surgical stockings, and a grey wig. She was convicted of the murder of Mary Travers and attempted murder of her father.
A man known as Man A, whom Mr Travers identified from police photographs and an informal ID parade as the man who shot him, was acquitted of the same charges. Twenty years after the murder, a Sunday newspaper claimed Man A was a Special Branch informant and a "protected species" and that the RUC had colluded with him by allowing him to commit murder.
Mr Travers withdrew a request to the ombudsman to investigate the claim but Ms O'Loan decided it would be in the public interest to continue.