BRITISH police informants were behind the murders and attempted murders of at least 27 people by loyalist paramilitaries in the north of Ireland, the police ombudsman said today.

It identified eight Ulster Defence Association members that were linked to the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) as part of the Operation Achille investigations.

Marie Anderson found intelligence failures and “collusive behaviours” by the RUC, saying that concerns raised by the families of the victims and survivors were “legitimate and justified.”

The report found that Special Branch continued to use informants, even though they knew they had committed murders.

Investigations focused on the RUC handling of 11 killings, including the murder of a mother of two, and a 15-year-old boy.

All of the victims were Catholics, including five men gunned down in the Sean Graham bookmaker’s massacre, the 30th anniversary of which was marked last weekend.

Matt Sykes, who survived the 1992 loyalist shootings, said the report would “take days to process and come to terms with.”

He said: “Immediately families are shocked to read in the report that eight British state agents were involved in 27 murders and attempted murders.”

Former republican hunger striker Pat Sheehan described the “palpable anger from the families of victims of the RUC-directed death squads” as they held a press conference in Belfast.

“The RUC directed state agents, supplied weapons and information that was used to kill nationalists in south Belfast and then protected the killers.

“Not a case of a few bad apples — the whole orchard was rotten,” he said. 

The UDA and its offspring the Ulster Freedom Fighters were responsible for at least 56 murders in Belfast during the 1990s, 20 of which took place in the south of the city.

It was a notorious paramilitary death squad, with around 150 members during the period under investigation.

Police Service of Northern Ireland temporary assistant chief constable Jonathan Roberts said that elements of the report made “uncomfortable reading,” offering “sincere apologies to the families of those killed and injured for the failings identified.” 

Sinn Fein deputy leader Michelle O’Neill said the report was “a devastating indictment of collusion between the state and loyalist paramilitaries.”

“This goes right to the heart of the British government’s policy, which was state murder of Irish citizens,” she said.