The PSNI is legitimate force to investigate crime, whether present day or in the past

In response to confirmation that the Legacy Investigations Branch (LIB) will recommence its work on May 1, 2020, it is important that this signal has been sent out by the Police Service of Northern Ireland that it prioritises and is focused upon the examination of unsolved cases which occurred over the years of the terrorist campaign.

However, we are concerned by public comment issued within a joint press release by the current chief constable and the victims commissioner, in which it was stated that the forum members agreed “the current policing architecture was not designed to support legacy investigations”.

This is not a representative viewpoint of the wider victims and survivors constituency.

Is making a joint statement appropriate? Surely there is a clear conflict of interest issue. It is not within the chief constable’s remit to choose or influence which crimes he wishes to investigate, no matter when they happened. Some will deduce these dual comments are designed to undermine the confidence of innocent victims in the independence of the LIB and PSNI to effectively investigate the past.

The role of the PSNI is to investigate crime, whether present day or within the past, it is the legitimate means for doing so. All political parties elected to the NI Executive and the Assembly acknowledge the PSNI as the legitimate police service in this region. Why would you then set up a parallel police force to investigate solely unresolved crimes carried out over the period of the terrorist campaign?

The infrastructure for investigating the past does exist within the PSNI and its LIB, with necessary oversight and governance adjustments. Alongside a new injection of revenue there is no reason why the work of legacy cannot be advanced in this method.

IVU is representative of a very large section of the victim/survivor population, the victims forum is comprised of individual victims/survivors. The chief constable has failed to date to respond to our request to directly engage, we re-issue our request publicly that he would make every effort to do so at the earliest possible opportunity.

Kenny Donaldson

Innocent Victims United, Fermanagh