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The inquiry into the murder of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane is to consider the “disturbing explanation” that security forces used “the UDA as a proxy to murder a lawyer who had incurred the enmity of the state”.

The long-awaited inquiry also heard there were nearly 300 instances of members of security forces assisting loyalist paramilitaries in the two years before Mr Finucane’s death.

The 39-year-old was shot dead at his family home in north Belfast in 1989 by the Ulster Defence Association in an attack found by a series of probes to have involved collusion with the state.

The Finucane family has been campaigning for decades for a public inquiry to establish the extent of security force involvement.

A 2012 review into the case by Sir Desmond de Silva QC prompted then prime minister David Cameron to apologise to the Finucane family for “shocking levels of collusion”.

In his opening statement on Tuesday, counsel to the inquiry Matthew Hill described Mr Cameron’s words as an “inescapable conclusion”.

Mr Hill explained that opening statements would “refer to only open materials”, but there is “a large volume of unpublished materials” that will be considered before a conclusion is reached by inquiry chairman Sir Gary Hickinbottom.

He referred to Operation Kenova, a probe which examined the activities of former army agent Stakeknife who was active in the 1980s, saying it “may well have uncovered material relevant to Patrick Finucane” that was not examined in previous reviews.

Mr Hill acknowledged that some parts of the narrative around Mr Finucane’s death may be “vigorously rejected” by other participants, which include the UK Government and the PSNI.

The barrister outlined the circumstances of Mr Finucane’s death and referred to evidence that “suspected paramilitaries arrested in connection to the crime were congratulated by RUC officers”, but “said that it should not have been done in such a fashion, ie. in front of Finucane’s wife and children”.

“It seems, sir, that that was too much, even for those who coldly applauded murder,” Mr Hill said.

Mr Hill then detailed the context of the attack; that “elements within the security forces provided the UDA with information and intelligence”, and described a “propaganda initiative”, which the De Silva report found was intended “to unnerve and expose Republican players”.

But it was found to be “not particularly focused or controlled, and came to include not just paramilitaries but prominent figures in the broader nationalist and republican communities”.

“The inquiry will consider these interactions and the extent to which they did or did not influence the murder of Patrick Finucane,” Mr Hill said.

“It must also consider a more stark and disturbing explanation.

“That these interactions were not nebulous, but the consequence of a deliberate and directed action to use the UDA as a proxy to murder a lawyer who had incurred the enmity of the state.

“It will not be easy to examine these matters at a distance of more than 35 years. Witnesses have died, memories have dimmed and evidence has been lost or destroyed.”

He added: “We must also be conscious that we re-examine decisions with the inestimable benefits of hindsight and time, and that we do so in the calm environment of a public inquiry. We must avoid retrospective moralising.

“However, we do not accept that the difference between then and now makes this task impossible or unfair.

“The position of the UK government in the 1980s was that the security forces were seeking to uphold democracy and the rule of law against terrorist violence.

“It is legitimate to apply that standard of the rule of law to its own actions.”

Mr Hill further stated that the inquiry would “examine the rationale and the motivations of those within the UDA who planned and executed the murder” of Mr Finucane.

Addressing Sir Gary, he said: “These are uncomfortable matters to contemplate, but such examination is what the terms of reference require.

“As your counsel, we will seek to pose the questions and bring the relevant evidence to light.

“This is done not to excuse the inexcusable the murder of a man in front of his family but to help you understand not just how it happened, but why it happened.

“We do not serve the public and we do not do justice to Patrick Finucane by doing anything less.”

Mr Hill then outlined issues the inquiry will assess relating to how security forces handled agents operating within paramilitaries.

He referred again to the De Silva report, where there were 270 instances of assistance being provided by members of the security forces to loyalist paramilitaries between 1987 and September 1989, averaging around two a week.

“Given the limitations of his sources, (Sir) Desmond concluded that these figures were, in his words, ‘likely to represent only a small sample of a wider problem’,” he said.