Police may seek to halt a legal action brought against them by the wife of an IRA informer because of her delay in taking the case, it has emerged.

The High Court was told lawyers are trying to contact ex-officers as part of their attempts to have Margaret Keely's damages claim against the Chief Constable dismissed.

Mrs Keeley, whose husband is a one-time MI5 agent known as Kevin Fulton, brought the case over her alleged detention at the Castlereagh holding centre in 1994 following an IRA attempt to murder senior RUC detective Derek Martindale in east Belfast.

She claims that after being released she was taken to a house in the New Lodge, north Belfast, and interrogated by a number of IRA men. Mrs Keeley says she later suffered a nervous breakdown as a result of her ordeal.

But it has now emerged that police lawyers may try to have the claim thrown out because it was not brought within a three-year limit from the date of the incident.

Granting an exception could be argued as being prejudicial.

Confirmation of how the police plan to proceed is to be given at a hearing in two months time.