I finally got around to watching Martin Scorsese's The Departed the other day, an excellent film that raises some interesting questions about the role of informers in modern policing.
In some ways The Departed resembles a Cold War spy thriller as much as a gangster flick. It points up the fact that every informer is potentially a double agent, capable of manipulating those he is supposed to be giving information to as much as those he is informing on.
This is the reality that underlies the BBC's recent attempts to find out how much British police forces are paying to informers, amid mounting concern that the system is open to abuse.
The PSNI was one of the seven forces which refused the BBC's request, and the recent history of Northern Ireland provides perhaps the best illustration of the range of issues that can arise from the use of informers.
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