Chief Constable: '˜Damning report ended HET'

One victims’ advocate told him at a victims conference on Saturday in Enniskillen that the vast majority of families he had supported were very disappointed with the HET reports they were given.

Mr Hamilton replied: “I think HET started off very well intentioned but it did suffer some degree of mission creep over the years,” he said, referring to “tensions” between truth and justice.

“Some of the practices of HET started to unravel along some of the lines you are talking about... as a result of that the previous chief [constable] – on my advice at the time I have to say – brought in HM Inspectorate of Constabulary to review the work of the HET.”

That report was “so negative and so damning that I felt confidence in HET was beyond repair”, he said.

So by the time he was chief constable, Mr Hamilton said he decided to do the job in a “more professionalised way”.

The result is that instead of HET, staff now working on the cases are drawn from around the PSNI itself. As a result, Mr Hamilton believes proposed legislation for the Historical Investigations Unit should be amended to allow it to review certain HET cases.