This address once carried the official press release announcing the review's report. That release is no longer here. This page is our independent account of the day, written from Hansard and contemporary reporting.
Before publication
The review was announced in October 2011 after the Prime Minister met the Finucane family at Downing Street. In November 2012 the Northern Ireland Office set out the arrangements for publishing the report, and a written ministerial statement followed later that month. Sir Desmond de Silva's report was laid before Parliament on 12 December 2012 as House of Commons paper HC 802.
The Prime Minister's statement
David Cameron made a statement to the House of Commons the same day. Drawing on the report, he told MPs that it set out "shocking levels of state collusion". He summarised findings including the 1985 Security Service assessment that 85% of the UDA's "intelligence" came from sources within the security forces, the involvement of two state agents, Brian Nelson and William Stobie, and the failure of RUC Special Branch to act on threat intelligence.
He also stressed that de Silva had found no over-arching state conspiracy and no evidence that ministers knew of the murder in advance, while noting the finding that ministers had been misled. Addressing the family, he said: "I am deeply sorry."
The debate
The Leader of the Opposition, Ed Miliband, welcomed the apology but said a public inquiry was still needed, pointing to the commitment made at Weston Park in 2001. The Prime Minister replied that an inquiry would be slow and costly and unlikely to establish more than the review had. Members from Northern Ireland parties set out their own positions, and the debate continued in the House of Lords.
The reaction
The Finucane family, who had declined to take part in the review, rejected it as no substitute for a public inquiry. That position led to the legal challenge decided by the Supreme Court in 2019, and eventually to the inquiry announced in September 2024.
For what the report itself said, read our guide to the principal conclusions.