Loughinisland verdict, families’ vindication
Posted by Jim on December 2, 2018
By Mike Ritchie (Relatives for Justice)
Finally, finally!
The families of those killed and injured in the Heights Bar have
official vindication of the fact that RUC collusion facilitated the
murder of their loved ones. A ruling by Mrs Justice Keegan in the High
Court, Belfast, this morning also confirms that collusion was a factor
in the failure to bring those responsible to justice.
Justice Keegan’s ruling quashed an application by former head of RUC
Special Branch Raymond White (on behalf of the Retired Police Officers
Association, RPOA), seeking to restrict the powers of the Police
Ombudsman to publish the facts and her/his conclusions arising out of
investigations into complaints against the RUC.
By implication, her ruling suggests that restriction of the Police
Ombudsman’s wide discretion to publish what s/he sees fit to publish
would undermine the peace process and the outcome of negotiations that
concluded the conflict in the late 1990s and brought about the new
dispensation in the north of Ireland.
Adrian Rogan, 34, Malcolm Jenkinson, 53, Barney Green, 87, Daniel
McCreanor 59, Patrick O’Hare, 35, and Eamon Byrne, 39 were all killed by
the UVF when one of their units pushed open the door of a quiet country
bar where the occupants were watching Ireland playing in the soccer
world cup in 1994. The killers opened fire with automatic weapons with
cruel indiscrimination killing the six men and injuring five others
seriously.
The complaint by the Loughinisland families against the RUC handling of
the investigation was first lodged in 2001. The matter is now concluded
an incredible 17 years later. (While an appeal is possible, such a step
would simply confirm the views held by many of Raymond White as someone
committed to undermining an important institution of the peace
settlement in the north of Ireland. It is to be hoped he will accept the
logic of today’s ruling.)
Mrs Justice Keegan summarily dismissed the argument that:
* the Ombudsman cannot make findings against the RUC as an organisation;
and
* the Ombudsman is unable to comment on collusion between the RUC and
other organisations, in this case loyalists.
She pointed out that, despite the fact there is no consensus on the
definition of collusion and that the fact that it is not anywhere
defined in law or as a criminal offence, it is nevertheless “an issue of
the utmost gravity” involving “high political and societal stakes”. It
is an issue, therefore, that needs to be addressed. The Police Ombudsman
is perfectly entitled so to do.
She stressed that the legislation establishing the office flows from the
peace process inasmuch as it was the Good Friday negotiations which lead
to the Patten Commission on the future of policing. It was the Patten
Commission which established the new architecture for policing. She
referred to para 6.42 of the Commission’s report which is worth quoting
as follows:
“We cannot emphasize too strongly the importance of the office of Police
Ombudsman in the future policing arrangements proposed in this report.
The institution is critical to the question of police accountability to
the law, to public trust in the police and to the protection of human
rights.”
After this powerful affirmation of the function of the Police Ombudsman,
Mrs Justice Keegan set out the wide discretion which parliament gave to
the institution in its statutory basis. In a withering put down of
attempts to curtail its remit, she said: “I am not attracted to a narrow
view of the Ombudsman’s functions”.
She was also live to the implications of her judgment for other reports
into other controversial cases. Her findings should allow the Ombudsman
to carry out the functions envisaged for it in holding the police to
account without fear or favour by carrying out independent
investigations into current activities and the role of the RUC in legacy
cases.
Provided the office of the Ombudsman carries out its functions lawfully,
with procedural fairness and was cautious in its use of language when
compiling its reports, it now has a wide discretion in how to carry out
its work and what to report on.
It remains to be said that the relatives of the victims of the terrible
attack at Loughinisland have carried themselves throughout with
fortitude, dignity and patience. Their poise is in stark contrast to
former RUC personnel seeking to cover-up past failings with a smothering
blanket of secrecy.