PSNI is quiet on its order to carry out a new Glenanne probe after it won court appeal

After the court’s ruling in Belfast on Friday July 5, police immediately said that they would examine collusion allegations, despite winning an appeal against an order to do so.

The loyalist Glenanne gang included rogue security force personnel. The judicial review was taken by the family of Patrick Barnard, killed in a bomb in Dungannon in 1976.

In 2017 Mr Justice Treacy issued what is known as an Order of Mandamus against a PSNI decision not to complete an overarching investigation into collusion with the Glenanne gang. Police appealed this.

A summary of this month’s appeal court ruling by Sir Declan Morgan, the lord chief justice, sitting with Mr Justice Stephens and Mrs Justice Keegan, said “the trial judge did not deal with the temporal aspect despite the fact that extensive supplementary submissions on this issue were made by both parties”.

Campaigners on behalf of Glenanne victims and some media outlets said the appeal court had ordered the PSNI to hold the collusion inquiry, but in fact it overturned such an order (it did say that Mr Barnard had a legitimate expectation of an independent report).

In a statement to media, the PSNI pointed out the mis-reporting of the appeal court judgement. Yet despite this mis-reporting of its successful appeal against the 2017 order, the PSNI nonetheless immediately announced a probe. After the July 5 ruling, the new chief constable Simon Byrne said police “thoughts first and foremost, are with the Barnard family”.

He then said: “I accept today’s judgment and, while we will take time to consider the fullness of its implications, we will now commence work to appoint the Independent Police Team to conduct an analytical report on collusion as ordered by the court.”

The News Letter asked why Mr Byrne did this after the appeal win. A police spokesman responded that establishing a new ‘independent police team’ was not the same as an ‘independent investigation’.

He said: “We noted that there was media reporting that the court has ordered an independent investigation into these incidents and that that was not the case.”

We also asked police why they were ordering yet another historic investigation into security forces, at public expense, amid concerns at a legacy imbalance against the state. We asked the estimated cost of the exercise. They declined to comment further.