NIO dodges question of whether Gerry Kelly should be kicked off Policing Board after High Court says he 'lost his moral compass' in the IRA and does not 'renounce' his crimes

DUP board member Joanne Bunting said she had never wanted Mr Kelly on the board, but believes any attempt to remove him is likely to fail because his IRA background was already well-known – plus, he had already survived an earlier call for him to go after being caught on video cutting a wheel clamp off his car in 2018.

The police had investigated him for criminal damage over that incident, but nothing ever came of it.

Mr Kelly had sued journalist Malachi O'Doherty (and is still suing journalist Ruth Dudley Edwards) for repeating the well-worn claim that he had shot prison officer John Adams in the head during his 1983 escape from the Maze.

This claim, said Mr Kelly, had damaged his reputation.

But the judgement handed down on Monday in response questioned what kind of a reputation Mr Kelly had to defend, saying that his actions as an IRA bomber (he was given two life sentences for being part of an IRA team which planted bombs across London in 1973) were those of a man who had "lost his moral compass".

Mr Kelly escaped from the Maze in 1983 while serving those sentences, and was recaptured along with a fellow escapee in Holland.

According to a piece in Sinn Fein newsletter An Phoblacht, “at the time of their arrest, cash in several currencies, maps and fake passports and the keys to a storage container holding 14 rifles, 100,000 rounds of ammunition and nitrobenzene for explosives were recovered by the Dutch police”.

Mr Kelly was wanted for his role in the breakout but was only extradited after the UK government caved in to Dutch demands and arranged a royal pardon for him, quashing his earlier life sentences.

Back in the UK, in 1988 he was tried for the attempted murder of prison guard John Adams; the judge – Lord Lowry – acknowledged that although the guard himself had identified him as the shooter, and the evidence showed that "he may well be" the gunman, it could not be proven beyond a reasonable doubt, and he was acquitted.

In his memoirs, Mr Kelly said: "I will finish by saying that I am proud of my time as an IRA Volunteer... for me, whether as combatant or politician, or ordinary citizen I remain, among other things, an unrepentant Fenian".

Noting this, in his judgement, Master Bell said: "Certainly, I can take judicial notice of the fact that Mr Kelly is now an MLA.

"But entry into politics is not necessarily the same thing as a restored reputation in the minds of right-thinking people.

"Mr Kelly had not, for example, filed an affidavit in which he stated that he now regretted his terrorist activities…

"In the absence of such a renunciation, a hypothetical right-thinking reader would see the shooting of Mr Adams as something that Mr Kelly might well have done in the support of his political and military objectives... [and believe that] despite his political service, his reputation was still bad."

The Policing Board on which Mr Kelly sits oversees the work of the PSNI, quizzing its top brass about topical issues and appoints the chief constable; indeed, Mr Kelly was one of a five-strong panel of board members that chose Jon Boutcher as the latest incumbent for that £220,000-per-annum job.

The Policing Board is first and foremost under the control of the Department of Justice, which currently lacks a minister.

In the absence of a minister the department says it is up to the Secretary of State – Chris Heaton-Harris – to remove a member from the board.

As such, Jim Allister has now written to Mr Heaton-Harris saying: "It is my view that this judgement makes Mr Kelly’s position on the Policing Board completely untenable and accordingly I would invite you to remove him from the Board."

Asked if Mr Heaton-Harris is planning to do so, the Northern Ireland Office said nothing.Likewise, Sinn Fein did not respond to Mr Allister's call for removal, nor did Alliance, nor did the UUP.

The SDLP sent a statement when asked about it, saying "the judgment of the High Court couldn’t have been more damning", but side-stepping the question of whether Mr Kelly should go.

Joanne Bunting, one of three DUP MLAs on the Policing Board, said the judgement was "embarrassing" for Mr Kelly and Sinn Fein, and that “there is a credibility issue” for the board.

"But then there’s always been a credibility issue with a self-confessed IRA member on the board,” she added.

Does she think this case could be a catalyst for removing him?

"No, I don’t. Because there are no startling revelations here: everybody knows what Gerry Kelly is, everybody knows what he’s been involved in…

"It’s no more questionable than whether they should’ve been there in the first place.”