Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland: Legacy Cases

Albert Owen Excerpts

Tuesday 26th March 2019 Westminster Hall

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

Before we start the debate, I will issue a reminder to hon. Members that under the terms of the House resolution on the matter of sub judice, they should not refer to specific cases that are currently subject to legal proceedings. Hon. Members may, of course, speak on general issues. The Clerk will be advising and prompting me and I will rule accordingly.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson (Lagan Valley) (DUP)]

I beg to move,

That this House has considered the role of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland in legacy cases.

I welcome the opportunity for this debate this afternoon. I thank the Minister, the shadow Secretary of State and other colleagues for their presence and participation today.

I will say at the outset that this is a matter that rightly requires the attention of this Parliament, not a parochial issue for Northern Ireland MPs alone. Although the appointment of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland is a matter for the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland and the finance is overseen by the Department of Justice, a devolved Department in Northern Ireland, legacy matters form a significant part of the work of the police ombudsman’s office, a significant part of which relates to national security, which of course is not a devolved issue. Therefore, I believe it is entirely appropriate that we consider these matters.

Hon. Members will be aware that there is currently an ongoing judicial review of one particular case investigated by the police ombudsman, which relates to a report on killings in 1994 in Loughinisland. I will not go into the detail of the judicial review, but I will refer to the case in general terms and give my view, as a public representative, on where I think the police ombudsman’s report was deficient in the context of the debate. This is not about the legal issues that are the subject of the judicial review, but if you feel I am straying at any stage, Mr Owen, you will of course bring me back into line.

It is worth recalling that the primary role of the police ombudsman in Northern Ireland is to investigate complaints by the public against police officers. That includes complaints linked to cases that are part of the legacy of our troubled past. Unlike most, if not all, types of—

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

Order. If I may just help the right hon. Member, this is a live case and there is a sense that this might prejudice it in some way, so I would be very careful in how he proceeds on this one. That is the advice I have been given and I ask him to take that on board now.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

Of course, Mr Owen, but since the ombudsman’s report is a matter of public record, it is entirely appropriate that public representatives comment on that report and its findings, and that is what I intend to do. I will of course be open to advice on this subject.

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[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

Just for clarification, it is important that we do not stray, and if hon. Members go further than discussing principles and policies, I will have to ask them to resume their seat.

[Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson]

Thank you, Mr Owen.

As I was saying, unlike most, if not all, other types of ombudsman in the UK, the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland has significant powers that include powers of arrest, detention, interview and conducting searches on property. Indeed, the powers are similar to those of the police. Those functions must be carried out under both the Police and Criminal Evidence Act 1984 and the Regulation of Investigatory Powers Act 2000, and the police ombudsman must comply with the requirements of that legislation. Nevertheless, I think many people would be of the view that using “ombudsman” to describe the work of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland might be a misnomer, given the wide, sweeping police powers that the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland has—unlike, I believe, any other ombudsman.

My comments today will focus on the making of section 62 public statements on findings arising from reports by the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland on legacy cases involving complaints that have been subjected to an investigation by the police ombudsman. Although I note that the police ombudsman has the right in principle to make such statements, I have significant concerns about the content of some of those statements and that the ombudsman may be exceeding their remit in that regard.

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[Jim Shannon]

rose—

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

Order. Before I call the hon. Gentleman, I inform hon. Members that I will call the Opposition Front-Bench spokesperson at 5.26 pm. The Minister will then have 10 minutes and the right hon. Gentleman who sponsored the debate will have two minutes to wind up.

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[Jim Shannon]

With my hon. Friend’s legal mind, she obviously succinctly focuses on the issues that we need to be aware of.

I believe that police officers involved in any case, wherever that may be, and who have not been afforded the protection of due process, should not be subjected to destructive and withering condemnations by any person who has a position of power. I believe that the ombudsman’s office has lost credibility and respectability, not simply among those who designate themselves as Unionists but among all who are right-thinking.

When I was sitting here and listening to my right hon. Friend the Member for Lagan Valley, I thought the release of a report that gave no right of reply, and that was ambiguous and condemning of officers at any time, was an indication of the intent of the ombudsman, as we sit by and see more and more focus on alleged state collusion. The allegations are made willy-nilly and without proof or evidence.

I can think of many atrocities during my lifetime. My right hon. Friend referred to atrocities, but not specifically. I can remember them from when I was a young man to the age that I am now. I think of Bloody Friday, when the IRA murdered innocent men, women and children across the whole of Belfast. In the Abercorn restaurant, where I used to eat as a young man, people were murdered while they were there having a meal—children and women butchered and destroyed.

There was the La Mon Hotel in my constituency, where again those who were in high positions of IRA leadership and who are now in positions of political leadership seem to have got away with what they have done. There are also the murders at Kingsmill. We all know the story about Kingsmill and the massacre there, and we know that there have been clear allegations of collusion by some members of the Garda Síochána in relation to that massacre—that is well-known. When we look to an ombudsman to investigate issues, those are the sorts of issues that they should investigate.

There was the Darkley massacre of men and women who were worshipping their God in their church. In my own family, there was the murder of my cousin, Kenneth Smyth, outside of Clady. Lexie Cummings was murdered outside Strabane. Four Ulster Defence Regiment men, three of whom I knew personally, were murdered in Ballydugan: John Birch; Steven Smart; Michael Adams; and Lance Corporal John Bradley. They were four young men who were murdered in the prime of their life.

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

Order. Can I just say to the hon. Gentleman that he has two minutes to conclude his remarks?

[Jim Shannon]

I am coming to the end of them.

The last case that I will refer to is the murder of Louis Robinson, a detective constable who was kidnapped in South Armagh and murdered.

All of these things tell me that the ombudsman’s time could be better spent. I see constituents referring deserving issues to the police ombudsman regularly. All experience a refusal due to a lack of resources to investigate every complaint. Perhaps if the ombudsman was more determined to leave legacy issues to the designated body and if it investigated what was needed today, my constituents, who I represent, might find resolution and justice.

The time has passed for the Secretary of State, or for the Minister of State, who will respond to this debate, to intervene and appoint someone who has knowledge of Northern Ireland and of what the ombudsman’s role is—someone who at least has the grace to admit what that role is—and someone who will forgo what has been described as personal ambition of retribution. Instead of retraumatising officers who have seen what we cannot imagine, who have paid their dues to this country and who do not deserve to be accused of collusion at any stage to satisfy a republican rewrite of history, that individual should do his job as it is understood by all right-thinking people.

[Tony Lloyd (Rochdale) (Lab)]

This has been most certainly an interesting debate, although possibly not the one that either the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley (Sir Jeffrey M. Donaldson) or I thought it might turn out to be.

Let me say this: the role of the ombudsman is vital. The problem is that it has been constructed in the wrong way. The ombudsman has responsibility for the investigation of contemporary irregularities by the police service, mirroring what I had some responsibility for as the police and crime commissioner in Greater Manchester, although more generally they were dealt with by the then Independent Police Complaints Commission, which is now under a different guise. There is no doubt that there needs to be that contemporary role, but the problem has come because that role has been mixed with the role of historic investigators. Quite honestly, neither the ombudsman nor the victims nor the Police Service of Northern Ireland nor politicians think that is a satisfactory process.

I will begin by asking the Minister whether he can throw any light on an issue. One of the things that I welcome is the recent announcement from the Department of Justice in Northern Ireland of a further £55 million for coronial investigations. However, that will put pressure on both the PSNI and whoever is the investigating authority, whether that is the ombudsman or another body; I will come on to that later. Can the Minister tell us whether there will be extra resources for those other investigatory bodies and of course for the prosecuting bodies, including the Crown Prosecution Service, because it is important that we see resourcing for them within the package?

I echo the words of the right hon. Member for Lagan Valley, who said that we are talking about human tragedies, and about victims. Right hon. and hon. Members have mentioned a number of particular atrocities. Let me make it clear that victims, whether they are victims of republican terror, of loyalist terror or of state actors, are entitled to have resolution of their cases, as their loved ones are loved ones, their mothers and their children are the same, whatever the background of the perpetrator. We must establish that because there cannot be some sense in which there is differential justice, but at the moment we have differential justice, particularly when we have different agencies involved at different times. We have ad-hockery.

In the case of Pat Finucane, it was only because of the intervention of the then Prime Minister, David Cameron, that there was an inquiry. For 30 years, the family had been fighting for a process of justice. They have had a partial victory recently at the Supreme Court, but there now needs to be a continuation with proper investigation of the murder of Pat Finucane.

That brings me on to another case—that of Edgar Graham, the Ulster Unionist Member of the Legislative Assembly at Stormont. He was a young man who was murdered in the most public of ways on the campus of Queen’s University of Belfast, when he stood next to one of his Ulster Unionist colleagues. That brutal murder has not been brought to any satisfactory conclusion. In fact, when the then Historical Enquiries Team process took it up, all that the family got was a letter saying why there would be no report into that particular atrocity.

Let us make it clear that we now have to move to a situation where there is proper and uniform treatment, whatever the authorship of a crime, and I say this advisedly: whether it be republican or loyalist paramilitaries or state actors —

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

You have one minute.

[Tony Lloyd]

Thank you. Two minutes, Mr Owen?

[Albert Owen (in the Chair)]

One.

[Tony Lloyd]

Of course my point brings us to the very important role of the Historical Investigations Unit. I have to say to the Minister that it is now five years since the Stormont House agreement concluded that that was needed. It is now more than six months since the consultation on that body finished. We need to see that body up and running, because, and I say this to the hon. Member for Upper Bann (David Simpson), if we are to see equity the ombudsman cannot investigate things other than where the police are involved. In the future, he or she will have no locus beyond that. If we are to see equity, we have to see the HIU in operation, investigating across the piece whatever the authorship, whatever the body. Minister, we need progress on that. We need to see the HIU’s terms of reference, and see it established, so that it can begin that vital work, which is so long overdue.