during the Nesbitt Inquiries, had effectively been coached by the RUC as part of a whitewash. The book also reproduced the full transcript of a conversation between Sunday Express journalist Barrie Penrose and Nesbitt, in which Penrose made it clear that he was opposed to the initial programme whether it was true or not. Amongst the controversial statements made, Nesbitt was quoted as telling Penrose that he was aware of a UVF internal inquiry into the show which, he told Penrose, had pointed the finger at UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade members Jackie Whitten and Graham Long as possible sources for the documentary makers. Awards and later years Prior to his retirement, Nesbitt had received a total of 67 commendations, which is the highest number ever given to a policeman in the history of the United Kingdom. In 1980, he was awarded the MBE "in recognition of his courage and success in combating terrorism". When he was asked by journalist Bobbie Hanvey his own opinion on how criminals were able to live with themselves after committing their crimes, his response was that he'd once interviewed a murderer who had killed more than once and admitted to him that, "he had been advised by a leading UVF man from Mid-Ulster that the best thing to do was to keep on committing murders. This way, you would forget them because you always remember your first victim and if you kept killing they would all eventually disappear – become jumbled up and none would stand out in your mind". He was the subject of a series of interviews by Stephen Nolan in his 2011 televised documentary on the Shankill Butchers. Nolan posed tough questions to Nesbitt as to why it had taken the RUC so long to catch the killers and whether or not the UVF leadership had knowledge of the Butchers' identity. Nesbitt defended his actions by pointing out he had put "every effort" into catching the culprits but that Lenny Murphy was a cunning and sadistic psychopath who "operated a tight circle" leaving no evidence behind after his brutal, sectarian killings. Murphy was already dead at the time of the interview having been fatally shot by the Provisional IRA on 16 November 1982. Nesbitt died on 27 August 2014 after a brief illness. In his book The Shankill Butchers: the real story of cold-booded mass murder, Martin Dillon summed Nesbitt up as "undoubtedly