Page 4 - Sam Mcbride News Today

A Stormont law is so draconian in protecting sex crime suspects that the name of a prolific abuser cannot even be said in court or referred to by a judge, Belfast High Court has been told.

Sir — For more than 43 years the Stardust families sought truth and justice. For much of that time it must have seemed that the families — with grief and love in their hearts — walked alone, except for the few who stood by them.

Imagine you are driving down a dark country road on a winter evening when you are stopped by armed men blocking the road. You’re taken out of your vehicle, asked your religion, and then slaughtered — with 136 bullets fired in less than a minute.

Ever since the IRA’s historic decommissioning of weapons, the process which saw arms destroyed has been clothed in acute secrecy — but now new documents are illuminating some of the shadows.

Sometimes, governments can have good reasons to keep things from the public.

Peter Robinson was “well aware” that DUP support for an independent unionist candidate in the 2001 General Election would see the Fermanagh-South Tyrone seat go to Sinn Féin, according to a civil servant who discussed the issue with the then MP.

The south Armagh watchtowers had a function which was so secretive that British security agencies did not even tell America what they really did, according to declassified Government files.

Tony Blair worked behind the scenes to avoid a full public inquiry into the murder of Pat Finucane after a conversation with the head of MI5 made a significant impression on the Prime Minister, a Government file has revealed.

Sir — One week on from a well-intentioned ESRI study declaring that 67.3pc of people in the Republic live in homes that are too big for their needs, homeowners of a certain vintage could be forgiven for an unmerited feeling of ­being partially to blame for the housing crisis.

A series of thefts linked to a Belfast missile factory caused the intervention of the Ministry of Defence and MI5, previously secret files reveal.