Freddie Scappaticci: frustration at failure to prosecute army’s spy inside IRA

Families of victims of ‘Stakeknife’ dismayed at lack of accountability after reports he took pleasure in torture

He was described as being in very poor health and living a lonely existence by magistrate Emma Arbuthnot as she sentenced Freddie Scappaticci, then 72, to a three month suspended jail term.

It was 5 December 2018. Westminster magistrate’s court had heard that Scappaticci, wearing a grubby blue fleece and green tracksuit bottoms, had used a laptop seized by police earlier in the year to search for information on “cars, the British army, maps, combat, football and politics”.