IT was not without irony that Simon Harris’ words in apology for state failings regarding the Stardust disaster travelled up the M1 to Belfast courts where families of the other state’s violations sat in a race against time to secure some accounting for direct state violence and collusion.

We are hours from the ignominious guillotine of May 1 when inquests will close forever and families will be cast adrift from the criminal justice system. Inquest courts are witnessing nothing short of a disgrace, where the British state is facing down and challenging bereaved families’ reasonable and rights-based requests for disclosure and transparency and coroner after coroner is being systemically frustrated, judicially reviewed and denied progress.

Already we have seen in the Sean Brown case that the coroner has declared the need for a public inquiry. Given the current position of other inquests and the British state’s refusal to cooperate with coroners in examining relevant materials, it is a precedent likely to be followed. 

The treatment of the family of Sean Brown has become a totem of indicative disgrace. And of the treatment of families affected by the state’s policy of collusion. Collusion between the British state and non-state actors must be the subject of an extensive public inquiry. 

When the Police Ombudsman delivered her report on killings in the Northwest two years ago, the Brown family was left out, as it was not part of her remit. This was just one example of how we are asked to individualise collusion, thereby minimising the enormity of this policy. We will talk about sectarian killings and look at them individually, or in small pockets, without examining public policy or, most importantly, securing accountability.

Why do we have reports which evidence collusion in the killings of Patrick Finucane, Loughinisland, the Northwest and South Belfast, up to and including resulting statements of apologies from a Prime Minister in Westminster, yet there is a consistent line that there is no overarching policy of collusion?

From the very beginning of this conflict the British state has used its proxies when it could not be seen to engage in direct military actions. It created an apparatus of collusive smoke and mirrors to give an illusion that it was not up to its neck in it. But we know now that every report finds the same patterns:

• RUC and British army operatives procuring and running agents in the groups.

• Giving them weapons.

• Giving them information.

• Being told that killings were going to happen and not acting on that information.

• Providing targeted information and targeting individuals.

• Writing press releases to claim responsibility.

• Telling the same state narrative disclaiming all knowledge, promising investigations when in fact they were up to their necks in the killings.

These reports always include ludicrous attempts at so-called balance, describing the challenges the RUC faced with “an escalating campaign of ‘tit-for-tat’ sectarian violence”. At this stage we can only view that as another cynical gaslighting of victims.

The collapse in due process this week and next as the Legacy Law comes into force will only delay the inevitability of state accountability, as their cover-up of their overarching policy of collusion becomes visible for all to see. But families will be harmed again and again while the British state plays its games of delay and denial.

It is beyond our words of shame.