Mr. Brian Gormally:

I do not have it to hand but my understanding is that she publicly defended that position on the basis that legacy inquests are part of the overall package so nothing is agreed until everything is agreed. That was the justification but behind that is the idea that there is more than one class of victim: there are innocent victims and there are victims who are not innocent. If that is a legal question, for example, if people were killed lawfully, they were killed lawfully. What one needs is a proper investigation that demonstrates whether or not that is the case. That has got nothing to do with prejudging the status of victims. Unfortunately, I do think there is a tendency to conflate people who were lawfully killed with those who were killed by state actors. Sometimes it is said that only 10% of people were directly killed by state actors but if one takes collusion into account one is talking about very different figures. The term "collusion" is no longer a propaganda term, it is a fact without any doubt. What one has is a political view of what constitutes a victim holding up services and justice for all victims. The pensions for the injured is the most dramatic and disgraceful example of that. On foot of political disagreements about the definition of "victim", nobody is getting anything. That is a scandal.