Two sisters, who reported that they had been sexually abused as children by a leading republican, have said they regret ever going to the police following a damning Police Ombudsman's report which revealed the RUC had information in 2000 which was never acted on.
Earlier this week the ombudsman released the findings of an investigation into the failure of RUC Special Branch to pass on intelligence in relation to child abuse allegations involving a man, named in the watchdog's report as Martin Morris.
Dr Michael Maguire's office investigated a complaint made by Mairia Cahill, who waived her right to anonymity in relation to alleged sex abuse and a later interrogation by the IRA, which she reported to the police in 2010.
Two other women, who were also members of the staunchly republican Cahill family, also made police complaints about the same man in early 2010.
In 2014 the trial of the man accused of the rape and of those accused of involvement in the IRA investigation collapsed after all three complainants said they'd lost faith in the process.
Ombudsman investigators established that RUC CID received information in 2000 which linked a man to the alleged abuse of children and Special Branch received additional intelligence in 2000 through to 2001 suggesting that a man had abused children and that the IRA was investigating this.
Dr Maguire said: "However, when the RUC received this intelligence it was not disseminated and there is no evidence of any police investigation or enquiries as a result of it. The material was sufficiently specific that had police undertaken even cursory inquiries they would have identified potential victims of abuse".
Read more:
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- Social services have questions to answer following Máiría Cahill ombudsman report
- Opinion: Mairia Cahill vindicated by Police Ombudsman report
The sisters are believed to be the potential victims named in the intelligence of abuse and yet no action was taken to protect them.
Speaking to the Irish News one of the women, who was 11-years-old when the alleged abuse took place, said: "I just feel the police put us through all that knowing it was never going to go anywhere.
"There could be other people still suffering, and why would they come forward now?
"I will never trust the police ever again and that's the God's honest truth", she said.
"What was the point of that process, why do that to us?
"We were put through a preliminary hearing, we were cross examined, we had been to police went through statements to prepare ourselves for a trial only to be told two days before that it wasn't happening. " she said.
The woman's sister who was just 13 at the time of the alleged abuse added: "I have daughters and if they came to me and said someone did something to them, I don't think I could go to the police or to the courts.
"When you go forward to make a complaint you do wonder are they going to hear your name, hear the IRA and just focus on the political aspect? As it turned out that is what happened, in fact they had already focused on the political aspect years before and the abuse was not their priority.
"This information was never raised, and yet it was specific information, social services never approached us police never approached us.
"This has taken so many years of our lives, for me I can't fully function, this could have been sorted long before I was ever a parent,
"I would like to close the door, I'm sitting with all these processes going on and all the doors are left open and I've yet to be able to close a door and say 'well that's sorted now I can move onto the next process'.
"When I went into this process I was prepared for two, maybe three years of disruption to my life but all these years later it's still ongoing, still no door to close", she added.
Solicitor Kevin Winter of KRW Law said the two women already have an ongoing action against the Chief Constable and the PPS about the "flawed and failed Crown Court criminal proceedings".
"From a legal point of view, we're still assessing whether to subsume this latest information as part of the ongoing action because it may have informed the decision to drop charges in 2014.
"There is now a further issue over decisions made back in 2000/2001 which we know is on the cusp of the changeover from RUC to the PSNI and that is obviously cause for serious concern", he added.
Earlier this week Chief Constable George Hamilton apologised for the "hurt and distress" caused to the victims and for the failures in the police investigation.
