Stevens conference 'exclusion' angers families

Sir John Stevens was met by angry relatives of some of those murdered and injured by loyalist gangs as he arrived at a Belfast…

Sir John Stevens was met by angry relatives of some of those murdered and injured by loyalist gangs as he arrived at a Belfast city centre hotel to publish his overview and recommendations today.

Family members were furious that they had been kept out of the a specially arranged press conference.

Mr Mark Thompson of the Relatives for Justice campaign group said: "It's an absolute disgrace that the families who have been bereaved and who are being discussed in this report have been excluded.

"It's bad enough that only around 20 pages of this document is being published without us having to endure this sort of treatment".

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Pressure for a full public inquiry in to the killing of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane by the UDA in 1989 will intensify with the publication of sections of the report today.

Mr Michael Finucane, the solicitor's son, said today: "I am not really in the least bit surprised that such an edited and shortened summary is being published because for some months now Sir John Stevens and his team have been moving back from their original position of full publication".

Speaking just hours ahead of the report's publication, he dismissed it as "irrelevant in the whole scheme of things" and repeated his calls for a public inquiry.

He told BBC Radio 4's Todayprogramme: "The report looks at what happened in Northern Ireland and somehow tries to point out errors in the system. Errors that might be fixed in the future to prevent things from happening again.

"But the fact is that no error was made - a very deliberate policy was put in place, a very systematic policy, one that was fully resourced and fully supported throughout all of the years that it was in operation.

"It was a policy of state-selected assassination. Loyalist paramilitaries were recruited as proxy killers for the government eventually, since that is where all policy emanates from, and those persons were allowed to kill with impunity," Mr Finucane said.

Mr Finucane told the programme the judicial process was "misconceived as a solution", because even if prosecutions were recommended, those involved could claim they were just "following orders".

"I have to say that if they made that defence to the charges they would probably be right," he added.

He agreed that the Finucane family still believed the investigation was designed to cover-up the truth. "There is a systematic element to this matter. It is something which lies, we believe, within the heart of Government, within the heart of the Ministry of Defence and MI5 and within the upper echelons of the British Army establishment".

Calling again for a public inquiry, he said: "I am not going away anywhere. I will keep the pressure on and I will keep reminding the Government of its obligations".