A FEW security force members in Northern Ireland gravely abused their

positions of trust by passing information to loyalist paramilitaries,

according to a top-level police report.

Mr John Stevens, the deputy chief constable of Cambridgeshire, and a

team of hand-picked English detectives spent eight months investigating

allegations of links between members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary,

Army, and Ulster Defence Regiment, and loyalist terrorists.

In his report, published yesterday, Mr Stevens said: ''I have been

able to draw firm conclusions that members of the security forces have

passed information to paramilitaries.''

He made 83 published recommendations for tightening and improving the

handling of intelligence information and investigation of terrorism.

But he added: ''It must be acknowledged in the present climate that

leakages of information from the security forces may never be completely

eliminated.''

He said if the recommendations for the police, Army, and other

organisations were introduced, ''then there is every hope that future

collusion between the security forces and paramilitary groups will be

eradicated''.

He added those involved were ''restricted to a small number of

individuals, who have gravely abused their positions of trust''.

He said there was no orchestrated campaign of leaks. He found no

evidence to support claims of an RUC ''inner circle'' working with

terrorists.

The published report was a summary of a fuller version which Mr

Stevens sent to RUC chief constable Hugh Annesley last month.

Some details and recommendations were kept secret for security

reasons. The report said no evidence had been found to substantiate any

charges against RUC members.

But at a Belfast news conference, Mr Stevens said: ''There are some

files which will be sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions in

relation to two RUC officers.''

It was learned later that two are full-time members of the RUC

Reserve.

The report said, however, that evidence and information had been

obtained ''which shows that certain members of the Ulster Defence

Regiment have been involved in collusion with loyalist paramilitaries.

''It would be wrong to conclude that there is a significant proportion

of Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers who are involved with

paramilitaries. This is not the case.''

A total of 94 people had been arrested during the inquiry, which began

last September.

Fifty-nine had been charged or reported for alleged offences under the

Prevention of Terrorism, Official Secrets and Firearms Acts.

Responding to the report, Mr Annesley said 31 recommendations had been

directed at the RUC.

Much had already been done to implement the recommendations dealing

with the production and care of terrorist recognition material, and

other recommendations would be considered.

But he opposed the main issue of the RUC having a special

anti-terrorist unit. ''If we had an anti-terrorist unit we would have to

put 70% of the CID into it,'' he said. Mr

Annesley, who has been head of the RUC for one year, said he would not

stand for wrongdoing in the force.

But no-one had been charged and the RUC was entitled to the same

standard of justice as anyone else.

The IRA's political wing, Sinn Fein, called the report a whitewash and

cover-up. It claimed there was clear evidence that a significant group

of RUC members had been consistently passing information to loyalist

death squads.

Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Brooke insisted in the Commons that

he had the fullest confidence in the UDR. He told MPs: ''I see nothing

in the findings to lessen my conviction that the the UDR plays a vital

and valued part in the Army's support for the police-led anti-terrorist

effort. I am convinced that the regiment is fundamentally sound.''

The deputy leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, East Belfast MP

Peter Robinson, called the report a ''cynical political exercise brought

out to appease nationalists.''

Mr Seamus Mallon, MP for Newry and Mourne and SDLP deputy leader, said

he was surprised no member of the RUC had been charged.

But Mr Gordon Mawhinney, deputy leader of the Alliance Party, said the

RUC had emerged with great credit.

The Northern Ireland Police Federation welcomed the report, saying it

confirmed their belief that leaks were not widespread or

institutionalised.

A UDR spokesman said the regiment would not comment.

Mr Stevens was called into Northern Ireland last September by Mr

Annesley after the outlawed Ulster Freedom Fighters, a cover name used

by the UDA, claimed to have murdered Roman Catholic Loughlin Maginn at

his home in Rathfriland, County Down, having targeted him as a

republican suspect through leaked police documents.

A short time later files were found to have gone missing from the RUC

station in Dunmurry on the outskirts of Belfast.