“The Government’s claims are untenable and bordering on farce.” That was the verdict from PSNI Chief Constable Jon Boutcher as the long‑awaited final Operation Kenova report landed today, urging ministers to finally confirm the identity of the Army’s most prized agent inside the Provisional IRA.

Kenova, a nine‑year probe widely costed at around £40m, runs to 160 pages and sets out in stark terms that MI5 was closely involved in the handling of the agent long known as “Stakeknife”, contradicting earlier claims that its role had been peripheral. Investigators say the Security Service had automatic sight of his intelligence from the start.

Sir Ken McCallum, the MI5 director general, issued an apology for late discoveries of files and commissioned an external review by former Met assistant commissioner Helen Ball. Her review concluded there was no deliberate withholding of material, but the failings were serious and MI5 says it is implementing all recommendations.

Kenova records that hundreds of additional MI5 documents only surfaced in April 2024, after prosecutors had already decided against charges. The report says this sequence can reasonably be read as attempts to restrict the investigation and “run down the clock”, language that underlines how fragile public trust remains.

The operational picture is chilling. An Army sub‑unit dubbed the “Rat Hole” was created solely to manage Stakeknife, with a bespoke database known as Bog Rat 3970. He was given a dedicated phone line and, when his enthusiasm waned, handlers flattered him to keep information flowing. Financial incentives ranged from sums close to an average wage to lump payments in the tens of thousands, including help to buy property.

Most starkly, newly disclosed records show handlers twice flew the agent out of Northern Ireland on military aircraft for “holidays” while knowing he was wanted by police for conspiracy to murder and false imprisonment. MI5 was aware at the time, Kenova says.

Across the life of the operation, detectives counted 3,517 reports from Stakeknife, including 377 in just 18 months. Time and again, those reports weren’t acted upon, with protection of the agent judged more important than protecting people who could and should have been saved, the report concludes. An earlier Kenova assessment found he likely cost more lives than he saved.

The agent is not named in the report because of the Neither Confirm Nor Deny policy. In the Commons, Northern Ireland Secretary Hilary Benn said ongoing litigation means it is not possible to name Stakeknife now, arguing that identifying agents risks jeopardising national security. Kenova’s Sir Iain Livingstone says this is an exceptional case and the public interest demands naming him.

Victims’ representatives were blunt. Belfast firm KRW Law called the failure to name Stakeknife “insulting to the families”. Paul Wilson, whose father Thomas Emmanuel Wilson was murdered by the IRA in 1987, asked how there could be truth without that key detail. Those families’ questions echo across the North of England, where many with Irish roots and service backgrounds followed this case for years.

Kenova also re‑examined the 1972 shooting of 24‑year‑old Jean Smyth‑Campbell on west Belfast’s Glen Road. Using fresh ballistic work, investigators said she was most likely killed by an unknown member of the IRA. Her family rejects that conclusion, saying the evidence points towards the British Army.

Stakeknife is widely understood to have been west Belfast man Freddie Scappaticci, who died in 2023. He operated as a British agent from the late 1970s into the 1990s while embedded in the IRA’s internal security unit - the so‑called “nutting squad” - linked by Kenova to kidnaps, interrogations and murders. He remains unnamed in the official report because of NCND.

For readers from Liverpool to Leeds, the message is grimly familiar: secrecy still trumps candour on legacy. What comes next is a political choice. MI5 says it has apologised and improved its processes; Kenova says families deserve answers they can recognise as truth. The Government, facing pressure from Stormont’s justice minister and the PSNI chief, must decide whether NCND remains credible in a case like this.