Police ombudsman probes claim that Shankill bomb planner 'was informer'

Nine Protestant civilians were killed in the IRA bomb attack

The IRA leader who planned the 1993 Shankill bomb was working as a police informer, the Irish News has reported.

Nine Protestant civilians were killed in the 1993 attack in Belfast, as well as one of the IRA bombers.

The newspaper said it had seen files stolen by the IRA from police special branch offices in Castlereagh on St Patrick's Day 2002.

It said the files had been decoded by IRA members.

This led them to discover the alleged informer's identity, the paper said.

In a statement, the police ombudsman's office said: "We have received a complaint.

"It centres on two concerns: Did the RUC have information which would have allowed them to prevent the bombing and was the subsequent investigation compromised; did the police fail to 'deliver justice to the families of those who lost their lives in the bombing?'

"We will now assess this complaint and speak to those who have made these allegations.

"We will seek to establish if this is something we should investigate, and if so, when we could begin this work."

The IRA bomb attack took place on a busy Saturday afternoon in October in the heart of one of Belfast's best known loyalist areas.

Among the dead were two children aged seven and 13.