John Downey

Alasdair McDonnell Excerpts

Wednesday 26th February 2014 Commons Chamber

[The Attorney-General]

I understand my hon. Friend’s comment. As I have also tried to make clear, I do not believe an amnesty is in place. Ultimately, in relation to offences committed in Northern Ireland, now that justice and policing are both devolved, these are not matters for me.

[Dr Alasdair McDonnell (Belfast South) (SDLP)]

May I offer my sympathy and the sympathy of my party to the relatives of those who died in Hyde Park, and of the seven Royal Green Jackets who died the same day? There are a lot of unanswered questions and I thank the Attorney-General for his information so far. We are told that this was a mistake—an error—but people want to know what aspect of the deal was a mistake. Was the mistake just because this came out? Or was the mistake just one mistake—this one letter—or were there 187 mistakes?

People want to know about the trade-off. People have been asking me how many of the people receiving letters were British agents. Victims and survivors out there want answers—honest answers. All the victims and survivors deserve honesty, openness, straight answers and, ultimately, justice. They deserve to know why and how their loved ones died, and they deserve to know what was at the back of the deals that were done and the basis for the deals. As my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mark Durkan) said, we had a dirty little war. Victims and survivors want to know that we are not going to be burdened with a peace contaminated by dirty little side deals.

[The Attorney-General]

As I understand the matter, and there may be others in the House who are better able to answer on the policy background, it arose out of a desire to provide reassurance to those who feared coming back into the jurisdiction that they could do so on the basis that there was no prospect of their being prosecuted on the evidence currently available to the authorities—the PSNI, as in this case, or other police forces. That was the basis of what happened. Of course, the hon. Gentleman is right: the wider way in which the peace process has been conducted is a legitimate matter for political debate, but in my role as the Attorney-General I endeavour to focus on what I see as the issues, and as I said earlier, there was nothing unlawful about the letters. There was no amnesty. But, as I accept, it is quite clear from the court judgment and the facts that emerged in the case of Mr Downey that Mr Downey should never have been sent the letter.