PFC letter - October 2015
The British government pledged in the Stormont House Agreement to allow the proposed Historical Investigations Unit (HIU) full access to all documents relating to deaths in the conflict.
The HIU, as proposed in recent draft legislation, will be constrained in passing on any information to bereaved families if the NI Secretary of State considers this might compromise national security. This contradicts the spirit of the original proposals.
We in the PFC are left wondering what information would have been withheld from the families if this stricture had been enforced in the recent past?
Would families ever have discovered that the gang who killed their relatives (in Clancey’s Bar in Charlemont) included a serving member of the RUC Reserve, described in court as a “cheese processor”?
Would the children of Gertrude and James Devlin, shot dead in Co Tyrone, have ever known that one of the assailants was a serving member of the UDR, described in court as a post office engineer?
Or would the families of Arthur Mulholland or Eugene Doyle have ever known that a leading suspect for the murder of their relatives at Hayden’s Bar was a serving RUC officer whose alibi did not stack up?
Further, without RUC ballistic and other information (provided to Justice Henry Barron) would the families of those killed at Donnelly’s Bar in Armagh, or those who died in the UVF bombing of Kay’s Tavern in Dundalk the same day, ever have known that both attacks were mounted from the farmhouse of RUC Reservist, James Mitchell?
Or that one of the guns used in the Donnelly’s Bar attack was taken from the UDR barracks at Glenanne, Co Armagh and was also used in attacks on Denis Mullen, Peter and Jenny McKearney, the Reavey brothers, Fred McLoughlin, and Patsy McNeice?
Would the Dalton family have known that the RUC was aware of IRA plans for the Good Samaritan Bombing in Derry weeks before it happened or that the area was declared off limits to the British Army/RUC?
Would the family of John Toland have known that the head of the UDA in Derry at the time of the murder had his name removed from the Police National Computer for reasons unknown?
Would the family of Henry Cunningham have discovered that the gun used in the murder came from a UDR armoury in Lurgan?
Or would the family of Sean Brown have known that a new generation of Number Plate Recognition Cameras were operating at Toome RUC as the killers drove past?
Could vital information on the existence of agents and state actors – or weapons taken from British Army barracks - be deemed too sensitive to “national security” to be released to families?
The original proposal as contained in the SHA for a Historical Inquiries Unit truly independent of the Chief Constable and the NIO has merit and would be a welcome development. The draft legislation coming out of London bears no resemblance to the Agreement.
Yours,
Paul O’Connor
Director
PFC