Stakeknife: seven years and £40m later, how did inquiry fail to deliver justice?

Freddie Scappaticci, codenamed Stakeknife, was responsible for multiple murders during Northern Ireland’s Troubles. Photograph: REX/Shutterstock

After seven years, 1,000 witness statements, 50,000 pages of evidence and £40m, the police inquiry known as Operation Kenova has resulted in zero prosecutions.

That blunt fact hangs over the publication of the inquiry’s long-awaited interim report into Stakeknife, the codename of a top British agent in the IRA who was responsible for multiple murders during Northern Ireland’s Troubles.