A special Branch informer, Mr William Stobie, was acquitted yesterday of involvement in the murders of Belfast solicitor Mr Pat Finucane and student Mr Adam Lambert after the case against him collapsed.
A jubilant Mr Stobie (48), of Forthriver Road, Belfast, said he was "glad it's all over now" as he left Belfast Crown Court. His solicitor, Mr Joe Rice, suggested Mr Stobie may sue over "the disruption to his life" and the four months he spent in custody because of the case.
However, the Assistant Deputy Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, Mr Hugh Orde, in charge of the day-to-day running of the Stevens Inquiry team, who arrested Mr Stobie, said his acquittal was a matter for the DPP and the courts.
But despite the outcome of the case, Mr Orde said that as far as the Stevens team was concerned it was "very satisfied" it had done everything it could to investigate "two terrible murders".
The case against Mr Stobie collapsed after prosecuting QC Mr Gordon Kerr told Lord Chief Justice Sir Robert Carswell he had been instructed by the DPP to "offer no evidence against the accused on the charges contained in the indictment".
In a 25-point statement, Mr Kerr said the DPP's decision came after concluding that their chief witness in the case, a former reporter and Northern Ireland Office official, Mr Neil Mulholland, was no longer a credible witness because of his mental state.
"The director has concluded that Mr Mulholland is not capable of giving evidence upon which a court could rely, nor is there a reasonable prospect of his becoming so capable at a future time in the context of this trial and that accordingly the test for prosecution is no longer met," Mr Kerr said.
Mr Mulholland, he said, was suffering from a depressive illness which could adversely affect the content of his evidence to a significant degree and, if forced to give evidence, there was "a real risk" of causing him to relapse "with possible irreversible consequences".
Mr Stobie's final acquittal then came following an application by defence QC Mr Arthur Harvey to the Lord Chief Justice who formally returned verdicts of "Not Guilty" on the charges Mr Stobie aided, abetted, counselled and procured the murders in February 1989 and November 1987 of solicitor Pat Finucane and student Adam Lambert, and of possessing the guns used in both killings.