No stone left unturned in Loughinisland cover-up

Posted by Jim on November 10, 2018

No stone left unturned in Loughinisland cover-up

The arrest of two journalists for the ‘theft’ of ‘secret information’
used in a TV documentary about the Loughinisland massacre has descended
into a pantomime public row, leaving the victims of the atrocity furious
at the abuse of police resources.

Six civilians were killed and five wounded in June 1994 when loyalist
paramilitaries, thought to be acting in collusion with the then RUC
police, opened fire in a busy pub in a County Down village.

Two mainstream journalists who made a film about the massacre, Barry
McCaffrey and Trevor Birney, were recently arrested in high-profile
police operations. Documents and computer equipment were seized by
police officers, who also raided the offices of the film production
company ‘Below The Radar’.

The raids were actually carried out by an English police force, Durham
Constabulary. They said they were requested to do so by the police (now
PSNI) in response to the report of a theft of documents from the office
of the Police Ombudsman’s office.

The source of the ‘theft’ claim was said to have been the Police
Ombudsman’s office itself — but the office this week repeatedly denied
making any such complaint.

Police Ombudsman Michael Maguire repeatedly contradicted the claim that
there had been an allegation of theft, negating the whole basis of the
men’s arrests.

Durham police bizarrely rejected this denial, and have since described
the journalists’ alleged ‘crime’ as “unauthorised disclosure and other
linked offences”.

Sinn Fein’s Gerry Kelly said there had been an attack on the freedom of
the press. He noted that the documentary took its name from a pledge by
then British Direct Ruler Patrick Mayhew that there would be ‘no stone
unturned’ in the hunt for the killers.

“Instead the families of those murdered have been subject to more than
20 years of state cover-up on collusion into the murders, and no one has
ever been brought before the courts for the Loughinisland Massacre,” he
said.

“And instead of the police taking action against those responsible for
murdering these six people, they arrested the two journalists who
exposed the evidence to TV screens across the world.

“These arrests were an attack on the freedom of press which is a
fundamental element of any democratic society that allows journalists to
carry out their work unhindered and the PSNI clearly have serious
questions to answer.”

The PSNI’s actions fall into a continuing pattern of political,
anti-nationalist policing in the north of Ireland.

Emma Rogan, whose father, Adrian, was one of the six men murdered at
Loughinisland in 1994, said the families were angry that police were
placing such emphasis on the documentary.

“Do the PSNI and Durham not realise that six people were wiped off the
face of the earth, and that this film, along with Dr Maguire’s report,
contained information that could help them to catch the murderers?” she
said.

“We have been down a long dark road to get some truth and justice. We
are still traumatised.”

Lawyers for the two men have already said they will seek to have the
investigation stopped, since it would have no legal basis if a complaint
of theft was never made.

The chairman of the National Union of Journalist’s Belfast and District
Branch chairman Gerry Carson said “the twists and turns” are “rapidly
approaching” farce.

The arrests, said Mr Carson, were an attempt “to warn other journalists
not to criticise the police – a practice adopted in countries where
democracy and the freedom of the press is demonised”.