"...four of her abductors didn't even bother wearing masks..." Your point being, er, WHAT, Teribus? Why do you have to pad everything out with such pretentious twaddle? Aren't the facts good enough for you?

"Now at the time the Republic of Ireland would have been pretty reluctant to bring this case if they'd viewed Jean McConvilles body..." Crap. There is no basis for such gratuitous speculation, beyond your own febrile imagination.

Well the ombudsman's report is out, and does indeed find that there was collusion between loyalist gangs and the police (as John Stevens also concluded four years ago). It will be interesting to see whether Teribus and perhaps Keith attempt to explain it away. But for me, facile retaliation along the lines of "what about Jean McConville?" is not good enough. The fact that it is good enough for Teribus is merely confirmation that he expects no better standards from the police than he expects from criminals and terrorists.

It is regrettable that no police officers, serving or retired, will be brought to account for what they have done, but as we know from the sabotaging of the Stevens inquiry, and from what the ombudsman has now said in her report, the guilty have destroyed the evidence. And of course they were well-placed to do so.

I will settle for the fact that Peter Hain, unlike for instance the retired police officers' association in NI, has accepted the report. I am not a fan of new Labour but I do believe that Hain is genuinely appalled at what has been uncovered and would have wanted prosecutions to follow had that been possible. That such an attitude now exists at British cabinet level is a far cry from the days when Stormont could behave as it liked, and Harold Wilson, and British prime ministers before him, simply referred any complaints about Stormont back to.... Stormont.

It is time that those who continue to whinge about the past recognised that the future is a different country. They should not let their bitterness jeopardise prospects for the succeeding generations.