Geoff Knupfer

I think they thought that they'd enact this legislation and somebody would ring and say, if you go to the top left-hand corner of such and such a field, you will find a grave.

And to some degree that happened in that three victims were recovered in those early days, the 1999-2000s.

One was left in a disused graveyard and a local priest was informed.

So clearly that had been on private ground somewhere and was exhumed by the former paramilitaries, put in a coffin and left there.

Two more were found by the guards and there was another case where a body was found on a beach by accident.

But other than that, all these other cases were left as big question marks.

No, I think that's a fairly straight answer.

No.

When I first arrived, I was asked if I would undertake a review and make recommendations on how the process could be taken forward.

There was a guy called Mitchell Reese who was one of the U.S.

officials, and he had done some work in the States where some railway workers who died and buried were found as a result of using forensic science.

Yeah, yeah.

So he talked to the families and then wrote to the governments and said, you know, there are avenues you could explore here.

So I think that's really, long story short, that's how my name came into the frame.

And, you know, really what we're doing is...

transforming this process from a reactive one where somebody's just sitting there waiting for the phone to ring to a proactive one where we're going to actually search and look for people who will help.

I think...

Clearly it was in the early days.

We had negotiations with the Republican movement, certainly from my earliest involvement in 2005, and they agreed to come on board.

I think persuading the primary people, the primaries if you want, for want of a better description, was not that straightforward.