In a modern democracy, politicians are expected to allow the police the operational independence to follow up whatever leads come up – even if many of them turn out to be false.
The alternative would be for detectives to ring up senior politicians and to ask which suspects could be vouched for and which it would be wise to pull in for questioning.
That is just the sort of old boys’ network that republicans claimed operated between senior unionists and the RUC under the old Stormont.
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