New legacy body won't cope with scale of workload: former top investigator

Proposals to create a new body with police powers to investigate Troubles-era deaths are unworkable, unjust and will take decades longer than is being suggested, an experienced legacy investigator has said.

The former RUC and PSNI senior detective – who then spent several years working with the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) – is adamant that the new Historical Investigations Unit (HIU) will be unable to deliver on what is being promised, leading to further heartache for victims.

He also believes that the decommissioning of terrorist weapons was carried out to destroy potential evidence – leaving only the security forces with material on which to base the prosecution of former members.

A public consultation on the government’s proposals closes on September 10. Once established, the HIU will be tasked with carrying out thorough reinvestigations of around 1,700 fatal incidents, prosecuting individuals deemed to have acted illegally and producing reports for bereaved families.

The date range for investigations will stretch from 1968 to 2004 (when the PSNI’s Crime Operations Department became operational), with the government setting a five-year time-frame to complete the process.

“Based on what is proposed in this [consultation] document, I would estimate that this will not be completed in 25 years,” he said.

The former senior investigator, who does not wish to be named, said: “In terms of value for money, in terms of public expense and public expectations, this will not work. It is not practical.

“The HIU has to prepare a DPP file and a family report in every case, and the enormity of that cannot be overstated. These family reports have to be 100% accurate, including the spelling of surnames and Christian names. If not, there will be lots of complaints about the whole process.

“Also, people who are not happy with these HIU reports will then challenge them, will go for judicial reviews, and those are matters that all have to be factored into the timescale of all this.”

The long-serving detective has questioned whether the sheer scale and cost of what is being proposed, particularly at a time when experienced former police investigators are already in high demand to bolster major crime investigations across the UK, can meet any of its main objectives.

“Would the Audit Office have a look to see what is practical and if this is value for money?” he said.

“I think if they speak to someone who has worked for the HET, or some of the legacy units, to see if this is possible, they will be told ‘no it is not’. If you look at Bloody Sunday [inquiry] it lasted for 12 years – and all the original paperwork was available. In a lot of these other cases there will be none, because a lot of police stations were destroyed, as was the forensic laboratory, so a lot of documents and exhibits were destroyed.

“If you were to take the murder of 18 soldiers at Warrenpoint [in 1979] and one civilian, that is 19 families that you have to engage with.

“Most of that incident was perpetrated in the Republic. The detonation point and the arrests were made in the Republic, so it involves another jurisdiction. This [consultation] document lacks any real reference to what should happen in the Republic in terms of how these inquiries will be pursued or reviewed. It is another jurisdiction.

“In terms of how long it would take to complete that particular Article 2 [European Convention on Human Rights] compliant investigation, it would probably take at least six months to go through all that. That would be based on a minimum of eight people working full time.”

Having spent many years investigating the most serious terrorist crimes, the former detective knows more than most how difficult it will be to secure convictions for historic offences.

“One of the big things is the disclosure rules and decommissioning has a big impact. All the weapons that were destroyed were potentially exhibits. They were destroying evidence, so how can anyone ever complain about the RUC or PSNI losing exhibits, or not being able to find exhibits, when the government effectively destroyed many of the exhibits with the decommissioning.

“In terms of disclosure, if you produce evidence on somebody, the question you ask is ‘could those weapons that were used in that incident have been destroyed during decommissioning?’”

He also has concerns that newly-trained investigators, and even those with CID experience from GB and elsewhere who are recruited, will struggle to grasp the context of investigating crime in Northern Ireland during the Troubles.

“They may be well intentioned, but they have no knowledge of Northern Ireland and the peculiarities that existed going right back to the early 1970s.

“When police officers were doing house-to-house inquiries they maybe had 40 or 50 soldiers guarding them. In an area like south Armagh there was so much danger in staying any more than two or three hours, even with 40 or 50 soldiers. And you couldn’t just go back the following day to finish those inquiries as somebody would be waiting for you with a 200lb landmine. That is why a lot of these [original] inquiries look very scant.”

The News Letter recently reported on a former Special Branch officer who has been under investigation for almost 19 years over his role in handling informers within the north Belfast UVF.

Commenting on how long anyone should be under investigation before being charged or told they have no case to answer, the former senior investigator said: “Realistically you have to be taking about two to three years, but that is at the extreme end.”

He added: “The [proposed] legislation says that [the HIU] will terminate after five years, with the secretary of state giving it a one-year extension only, but this will be open to legal challenge. Once this gets up and running, that will be it.”

• Anyone wishing to make a submission to the government’s consultation ‘Addressing the Legacy of Northern Ireland’s Past’ has just over one month to do so.

Launching the process in May this year, the NIO said the public consultation and its outcome would help “support true reconciliation and healing at a societal level”.

In a statement to coincide with the launch, the NIO said: “The hurt and suffering caused is still felt by people across Northern Ireland and beyond. The Troubles affected lots of different people, including victims and survivors.

“The government is trying to find the best way to meet the needs of victims and survivors and to help people address the impact of the Troubles in the areas of information, justice and acknowledgement and help Northern Ireland transition to long term-term peace and stability. We want to know what you think.”

You can request a submission form by emailing [email protected] or by writing to the Legacy Policy Team, NIO, Belfast BT4 3SH, or complete one online at www.gov.uk/nio.