GARY Haggarty’s evidence was deemed unreliable in part because one of his RUC Special Branch handlers was ‘on the sick’ when the Mount Vernon UVF boss said the pair discussed potential targets.
Director of Public Prosecutions Barra McGrory announced on Wednesday that a decision had been taken not to prosecute 13 suspects – two of them former RUC officers – named by the self-confessed loyalist killer who was accepted as an ‘assisting offender’ in 2010.
Families of the Mount Vernon UVF’s victims expressed anger at the decision and criticised the expected reduced sentence for Haggarty despite his guilty pleas to hundreds of paramilitary offences including five murders.
It is believed Haggarty, who has already served almost three and half years on remand, is unlikely to receive further jail time.
His most serious confessions relate to pre-1998 offences for which he has already served the required two years under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement. He is also entitled to a reduction in sentence of up to 75 per cent for offences after 1998 as an assisting offender.
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This is despite the PPS admitting he is an unconvincing witness and therefore unlikely to be required to enter the dock and testify against his former UVF associates.
Among the charges to which Haggarty has already pleaded guilty is conspiracy to murder five north Belfast men he claimed he was encouraged to target by his police handlers.
The PPS told the victims of the decision not to prosecute in a detailed letter that stated the “very serious allegations against one officer” could not be corroborated because he was on “long-term sick leave”.
It added that Haggarty’s lack of “credibility and reliability” and the “general absence of independent supporting evidence” had contributed to the decision not to prosecute the former RUC officers.
The Irish News understands that “long-term sick leave” refers to the Special Branch officer producing a copy of a doctor’s sick line dating to 1994 for a bad back.
The sick line threw into doubt Haggarty’s version of events, as did the Special Branch culture of poor record-keeping and regular file shredding which meant there was no way to verify whether the officer was working or if he continued to remain in contact with the UVF informer during this period.
