“the only way we will see a successful prosecution in a criminal court..”

He may have been reading Mark Devenport’s blog, or perhaps Mick’s Comment is Free post, but Chief Constable Hugh Orde commented today on yesterday’s judgement by Mr Justice Weir and, after referring to the original investigation by the RUC as an “imperfect product”, he also made a point about the prosecution’s reliance on forensic evidence alone.

[Hugh Orde] said: “People out there know who did this. There is a lot of intelligence but intelligence is not evidence. In my judgment, the only way we will see a successful prosecution in a criminal court is if people stand up and say ‘This was committed by X and I will tell you how it happened’. If they do that they will have my total support and total protection.”

The BBC report also notes

In an interview for the BBC, Mr Orde conceded that exhibits were “not to the standard and were not packaged in the way we would do it now”.

But he added: “It was an absolutely genuine attempt to do our very best with what little we had.

“I think we discharged that responsibility to the best of our ability with what was available.”

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