Gerry Adams was the leader of the Irish Republican Army, two former police officers have told the high court.

The former Sinn Féin leader is being sued for symbolic “vindicatory” damages of £1 each by John Clark, Jonathan Ganesh and Barry Laycock, who allege he was culpable for three separate IRA bombings in which they were injured.

Adams denies ever being a member of the IRA or having sat on its army council.

On Thursday, Tim Hanley, a retired detective for the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC), and a former RUC special branch intelligence officer anonymised as “witness B”, gave evidence that Adams led the proscribed organisation.

Hanley, in his written witness statement, said: “There is no question in my mind that Adams was the leader of the PIRA [Provisional IRA]; that’s what all the intelligence concluded. I know Adams was the leader of the PIRA until the mid-2000s, and it was only then that he took a backwards step. That said, the PIRA is like the mafia; you never really leave it. He led the PIRA throughout the whole of the Troubles from the early 1970s.”

In cross-examination, Edward Craven KC, representing the defendant, said to Hanley that he had “greatly exaggerated both the quantity and quality of evidence you saw about Mr Adams”. Hanley denied that was the case.

Craven also told him: “If you had information which created a reasonable suspicion that Mr Adams directed those bombings, you would have immediately contacted your counterparts in London and Manchester.”

In response, Hanley said there were only finite resources, before adding: “I could have done it [contacted counterparts]. The operational reality was that Mr Adams, or anybody else I would say in the IRA, would go for a no-comment interview and not speak.”

Witness B, who sat behind a screen in court, said in his written statement: “A great deal of intelligence which I read communicated, both explicitly and implicitly, that Adams was a senior member of the IRA army council and the de facto leader of the IRA. I can state categorically that all of my working colleagues in the RUC special branch believed this to be the case.”

Adams’ other barrister, James Robottom, questioned witness B as to why his client was not arrested by police until 2014 (Adams was interned by British soldiers in 1972) if such intelligence existed, given that being a member of the IRA was a criminal offence.

Witness B said: “I would say he was consistently being looked at to see if there was any evidence that would meet the criminal burden of proof.”

He added that “very few people” were prosecuted for membership of the IRA and that it was usually “added on if someone was caught red-handed with guns or bombs”.

Asked if he agreed that intelligence could be inaccurate, he said: “A huge amount of it is wrong. Sometimes the sources are trying to mislead you.”

The trial will resume on Monday.