This simple fact became the new central plank of the RUC’s battle with the IRA and loyalist groups. Its detective ranks were reorganised, with specialist collators appointed, in the largely pre-computer age, to amass and analyse every scrap of evidence. Trained teams of interrogators were then put to work in new specially designed interrogation centres, most notably at Castlereagh in east Belfast. IRA and loyalist suspects were rounded up by the score and subjected to intense interrogations, with many of them subsequently charged with serious offences.
