Editorial: If police are going to issue legacy apologies then the security forces should say sorry for when they failed to catch terrorists
Who can be surprised that support for the IRA is retrospectively growing when all anyone hears about is supposed British brutality? This week the PSNI apology to the Hooded Men was breathlessly reported. The TUV was right to point out that there was barely any criticism of the apology outside their party. It is welcome therefore that the DUP’s Emma Little Pengelly was so scathing yesterday about the hooded man Joe Clarke being buried with terrorist honours.
How refreshing to hear her say: "Like Bobby Storey, in death it was confirmed that he was an IRA terrorist. Whilst the courts were able to assess how Joe Clarke was treated by the security forces, no one will ever know or assess how Clarke treated IRA victims.”
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Hide AdWill the PSNI or other sections of the security forces apologise for their failure to bring to justice terrorists like Joe Clarke? After all, when such terrorists are alive barely a word can be said about them due to NI's stifling libel laws (even post modest defamation reform).
The NI courts in 2019 designated as torture the treatment of the hooded men that even the European Court of Human Rights had refused to designate as such despite the relentless efforts of Irish governments. When Mr Justice Deeny issued a blistering dissent on that appalling judgement barely a word of it was reported by BBC Northern Ireland. Then in 2021 when the Supreme Court heard the case its ruling was widely reported as upholding their treatment as torture, when in fact – as the barrister Austen Morgan wrote on these pages (see link below) – it was a ruling that will probably limit the scope of endless legacy investigations (most against the UK state).
What a grievous failure there has been to counter the terrorist narrative and challenge the deluge of slurs on the security forces who prevented civil war.