1981
Pat Finucane comes into the public eye when he acts as solicitor for Bobby Sands during the hunger-striker’s successful campaign to be elected as a British MP. He handled the legal affairs of other hunger-strikers in the latter stages of their protest when, the prisoners believed, there would be legal moves made to revive them.
1987
The British army’s secret agent handling team, the Force Research Unit, recruits former loyalist paramilitary Brian Nelson to return to Northern Ireland and become an agent within the Ulster Defence Association (UDA). Nelson rises to become the UDA’s intelligence chief.
1988
Pat Finucane becomes widely known in Northern Ireland when he represents the families of three men killed in the so called “shoot to kill” episode in Armagh in 1982. He brought a successful High Court challenge to a coroner’s ruling that the RUC men involved in the killings should not be called to give evidence.
Fincane represents Patrick McGeown, who was accused of helping to organise the March 1988 killing of two army corporals, when criminal charges against him are dropped.
January 1989
British home office junior minister Douglas Hogg tells MPs that certain solicitors in Northern Ireland are “unduly sympathetic” to terrorist organisations, indicating he meant the IRA.
February 1989
Pat Finucane is murdered by loyalist gunmen who burst into his home in north Belfast and shot him multiple times as he was having a meal with his children and wife Geraldine, who was wounded. SDLP and Sinn Féin politicians say Hogg’s comments legitimised loyalist attacks on solicitors who represent republicans.
September 1989
John Stevens, then deputy chief constable of Cambridgeshire Police, is appointed to investigate allegations of collaboration between the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries. A fire at the headquarters of the Stevens team the following January destroys many of their files.
Mr Stevens’s investigations primarily dealt with security force files about potential republican assassination targets falling into the hands of loyalist paramilitaries. He found evidence of a “small number” of individual security force members passing on information, but said such collusion was “neither widespread nor institutionalised”.
January 1992
Brian Nelson goes on trial at Belfast Crown Court. Col Gordon Kerr of the Force Research Unit tells the trial Nelson wanted to save lives. He said that Nelson’s information allowed him to hand police 730 reports of possible assassination attempts against 217 individuals. Nelson is jailed for 10 years on five counts of conspiracy to murder.
April 1993
John Stevens begins the second inquiry into the security forces in Northern Ireland.
[ British government orders inquiry into murder of Pat Finucane by UDAOpens in new window ]
March 1998
United Nations special investigator Param Cumaraswamy accuses the RUC of “systematic intimidation” of lawyers representing paramilitary suspects. He calls for an independent inquiry into the killing of Finucane.
April 1999
John Stevens, now deputy commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, returns again to Northern Ireland to launch a third inquiry.
June 1999
Former UDA quartermaster William Stobie, also a police informant, is charged with the murder of Finucane, but later acquitted. He is later murdered, in December 2001, by the Red Hand Defenders, a cover name used in the past by the UDA and Loyalist Volunteer Force.
May 2002
Retired Canadian judge Peter Cory appointed to investigate six controversial killings in the North, including that of Finucane, in which security force involvement was alleged.
June 2002
BBC’s Panorama programme provides details of undercover Force Research Unit members and alleges an unnamed RUC special branch officer persuaded loyalists to murder Finucane.
April 2003
Stevens’s third report concludes that elements within the RUC and British army colluded with loyalist paramilitaries to murder Catholics in the late 1980s. The Finucane family reiterates its call for a full, independent, public inquiry into Finucane’s murder. Also, Brian Nelson dies of cancer in Canada. Following his release from prison, he had been living under an assumed identity at a secret location in England.
July 2003
The European Court of Human Rights rules that the police investigation into the murder of Finucane was a breach of human rights.
October 2003
Peter Cory’s reports handed to British and Irish governments with clear warning that text should not be altered. Delay in publishing reports sees British government accused of trying to “sex down” the findings.
April 2004
Cory reports published, finding “there is strong evidence that collusive acts were committed by the army (Force Research Unit), the RUC special branch and the security service”. Cory said the army handlers of Nelson and their superiors “turned a blind eye” to his “criminal acts” which “established a pattern of behaviour that could be characterised as collusive”. He recommends a public inquiry into Finucane’s death.
September 2004
Loyalist Ken Barrett receives a life sentence after admitting he had a role in the shooting of Finucane. Then northern secretary Paul Murphy subsequently moves to set up an inquiry into the Finucane case, but says special legislation is needed because it would have to deal with sensitive matters of national security.
The Finucane family opposes the Inquiries Act 2005, arguing it would allow government to interfere with the independence of a future inquiry because a government minister could rule whether the inquiry sat in public or private. Plans to establish an inquiry are halted by then northern secretary Peter Hain.
October 2011
Geraldine Finucane says she is “angry” and “insulted” after British prime minister David Cameron tells her he was proposing a barrister-led review of her husband’s case. Cameron apologises to the family and acknowledges there was collusion. A limited 18-month inquiry into his death led by Sir Desmond de Silva QC is announced. He is allowed to examine existing documentation, but not to examine witnesses under oath.
January 2012
Finucane family granted a judicial review of the decision by the British government not to hold a public inquiry into his death.
December 2012
The de Silva report, which runs to some 500 pages, is published, finding that agents of the state were involved in carrying out “serious violations of human rights up to and including murder”.
However, the report states there had been “no overarching state conspiracy” in the killing, a finding which is rejected by the Finucane family, who believe there was high-ranking political and security service involvement in the murder.
February 2014
Amnesty International describes the British government’s refusal to hold an independent inquiry into the murder as “not only cruel, but positively sinister”.
May 2015
Finucane’s family begins a legal bid at the High Court in Belfast to force a public inquiry into the killing, labelling the de Silva report as a “sham”. The court ultimately rejects the call, finding that Cameron had not acted unlawfully in refusing to hold a public inquiry.
February 2017
Geraldine Finucane loses an appeal against the High Court’s decision.
February 2019
The Finucane family loses a British supreme court challenge over the decision not to hold an inquiry.
January 2020
Geraldine Finucane wins permission at Belfast’s High Court to challenge an alleged failure to act on a finding that Finucane’s killing has never been effectively investigated.
October-November 2020
Political parties in Northern Ireland, the UK Labfour Party and thentaoiseach Micheál Martin call for a public inquiry into the killing.
Then northern secretary Brandon Lewis tells the House of Commons he had decided “not to establish a public inquiry at this time” but “I am not taking the possibility of a public inquiry off the table at this stage”.
December 2020
Lewis is ordered to pay £7,500 damages to Geraldine Finucane for the “excessive” delay in deciding not to hold a public inquiry into his murder.
May 2021
The North’s Assembly passes a motion calling on the UK government to hold an independent, public inquiry.
December 2022
A Belfast High Court judge rules that the UK government remains in breach of its legal obligation to carry out an investigation into the murder and directs that a new decision be made to address investigative deficiencies over the murder.
September 2024
The UK government orders a public inquiry into the murder of Pat Finucane.
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