Солтүстік Ирландиядағы құқық қорғау органдары мен парамилитарлық ұйымдардың байланысы: Стивенс тергеулері

The Stevens Inquiries were three official British government inquiries led by Sir John Stevens concerning collusion in Northern Ireland between loyalist paramilitaries and the state security forces. While Stevens declared in 1990 that collusion was "neither wide spread nor institutionalised", by April 2003 he acknowledged that he had uncovered collusion at a level "way beyond" his 1990 view. Much of Stevens' evidence was obtained from advanced fingerprint techniques to link people to documents. By 2005 the team had identified 2,000 people from their prints with a further 1,015 sets of prints outstanding.

In September 1989 RUC chief constable, Sir Hugh Annesley, ordered the initial enquiry about the circumstances following the August 1989 death of Loughlin Maginn. Maginn, a 28 year old Catholic, was shot by the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) at his home in Lissize, near Rathfriland. Although Maginn had no paramilitary connections, the UDA claimed he was a Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) intelligence officer. In an attempt to prove the accuracy of their targeting, the UDA published security force documents and a video of police intelligence. (It was later found that the video had been provided by sympathetic soldiers using equipment supplied by UDA double agent Brian Nelson).

Stevens would later claim in a book he wrote that from the investigation's outset there was a concerted campaign to discredit the inquiries among elements of the British media. He also claimed that when he enquired with the British military authorities on whether or not a dedicated Intelligence Corps unit operated in Northern Ireland, he was told that there were no such units currently operating there. Stevens later discovered that the Force Research Unit (FRU) was indeed operating in Northern Ireland when senior RUC officers blamed the unit for an arson attack at his Inquiry headquarters. Following their discovery of the then unknown Brian Nelson's fingerprints on security documents, the Inquiry team encountered a wall of silence as they tried to investigate further: Brian Fitzsimmons, Acting Head of the RUC's Special Branch, became evasive, telling Stevens: We can't help you with this man; and, at the Grosvenor Road station, Nelson's card in the intelligence card system was initially whipped away from the investigators. However, the team persevered and gathered enough fresh evidence to plan a secret operation to arrest Nelson on Monday 10 January 1990. Stevens went home the weekend before the planned arrest. As he returned to Belfast on the Sunday afternoon, there were two journalists on the plane; they informed him that they had been sent over to cover the raids. It was obvious that there had been a leak, and it was decided to postpone the operation for 24 hours. In the meantime, Nelson escaped to England. That night there was a fire at the team's incident room within the secure complex at Sea Park, the RUC's Carrickfergus Headquarters. The main team had left at 9pm but four members unexpectedly returned 25 minutes later to find the room alight. Neither the smoke alarm nor the heat sensors had gone off and the telephone lines had been cut. They made an attempt to tackle the fire but found that there was no water in the fire protection system.

In April 1999, as part of the Enquiry, William Stobie was arrested and charged with the murder of solicitor Pat Finucane. In June that year, as agreed, journalist Ed Moloney published Stobie's version of the circumstances of Finucane's death.

Loyalist "Twister" Billy McQuiston revealed to journalist Peter Taylor that he and his comrades believed the Stevens Inquiry and the arrest of Brian Nelson did the UDA a favour, declaring "The Stevens inquiry got rid of all the old guard within the UDA and fresher men took over". In its aftermath, Loyalists began out killing the IRA for the first time in decades, leading up to the eventual ceasefires and Good Friday Agreement.