Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-106)
MS JO
DOVER
2 FEBRUARY 2005
Q100 Mr Pound: Have you ever thought
of publishing any of the shared experiences?
Ms Dover: We are in the process
of trying to get funding to produce an archive of experiences
where people can share their stories, and they are then going
to be published, maybe in a book or maybe a website, maybe an
exhibition, but that was certainly a need that was identified
and a recommendation in our report that that kind of public sharing
is also very useful. It can be anonymous, people do not have to
be identified in that, but that kind of thing has definitely been
expressed from people we work with, that they would like other
people to hear about it, not just in that small story-telling
environment, and that is why we also put in the paper about an
archive of experiences, a public place—not a truth process
but a place where people can say this is what happened to me and
they can read other people's stories as well. I think for some
people writing it might be really cathartic, for others it might
be difficult. Some of it is about how people express themselves
and so, yes, we are looking at people being able to tell their
story in whatever format that is, so when we are trying to get
our funding to produce an archive of experiences, it may be that
people write poetry, draw pictures, have photographs, use memorabilia,
record it, make a song, whatever way they can express themselves
is really important, it is not necessarily just about a book or
something like that, but I think we are going to look at trying
to get people to talk in whatever format they can.
Mr Pound: Thanks very much indeed. That
question was absolutely nothing whatever to do with our inquiry
and I am very, very grateful for your answer. I apologise to the
chairman for asking it, thank you very much indeed.
Q101 Mr Luke: Jo, in earlier questions
you stressed the point of the importance of a trust in the process
of reconciliation; how important do you believe truth and justice
is to the victims in this process?
Ms Dover: I think, again, it is
one of those individual things and I can only speak generally.
One of the things that we found really interesting in our research—and
possibly it might have been about the people we actually interviewed—was
that justice in terms of criminal justice did not come out as
a really major issue. I think that is probably more about some
of the people who have been in some kind of criminal justice system
that had happened, and for others there was none. I know, for
example, in the case of Warrington nobody was ever prosecuted
for it and my sense of where people are with that is that there
is not any calling for that person to be found at this stage,
so I think it is an individual need. When something awful happens,
people often want to know why and I think sometimes that can be
gained by hearing exactly what happened in your instance. I also
think again, when I go back to the story-telling, one of the things
that is really important about story-telling is when you have
somebody who can talk about it from the former combatant point
of view about why they got involved, what they did or how their
actions played out, that can be really beneficial for someone
in trying to just understand why their incident may have come
about. It might not be the direct person or even the direct group
responsible, but it gives them an indication of sort of looking
at it from a human perspective. So I think for some people that
is their burning need, for some people they want to go back to
the place where it happened, talk to the people involved and know
exactly what went on. Some people will do that in a really underground,
very quiet way, and some people will want to do that in a very
public way. It is very difficult to give a concrete answer because
it is very personal for people in terms of where they are at,
whether they feel some kind of justice has been done or not. Sometimes
some of the people we work with have felt that there is a need
for some kind of reparation; that does not necessarily mean somebody
being prosecuted but some kind of reparation for what happened;
it can be an acknowledgement from one side, an apology or those
kinds of things.
Q102 Mr Luke: How effective do you think
the criminal justice system has been at discovering the truth
or uncovering the truth and obtaining justice for the victims
of the conflict?
Ms Dover: For some people that
may have been successful and for others it probably was not, It
is known that there are 1,800 unsolved murders; that is where
people died, and I am wondering how many unsolved crimes there
are where people were injured but not killed. There must be thousands,
so I am sure that people generally probably do not feel that it
has been very successful, but for some people it might have been
and then of course with the Good Friday Agreement the release
of prisoners has been very contentious for a lot of victims in
terms of feeling, you know, has justice been done because the
person has been released? There is also some lack of understanding
as to why and how that came about, but for people over here that
may well have been around not being connected to the decision-making
process.
Q103 Mr Luke: You made that point about
the prisoners being released, would you agree then that people
often talk about the rights of defendants and indeed the prisoners
on release, but maybe there is an imbalance in that people do
not concentrate enough on the rights of the victims in this context?
Ms Dover: I think that is not
just in relation to the Troubles, I think that is a general thing
in relation to victims and offenders. This is a personal view,
but possibly my organisation may agree, in terms of victims of
crime, a lot of money, time and effort is spent on the rehabilitation
of offenders, people are given a lot of time in terms of the court
time, maybe a prison sentence and then rehabilitation afterwards,
but there is no parallel process for victims, there is not as
much time, effort and money spent on the rehabilitation of victims
back into society, if you like. I am not suggesting I know how
that happens, but certainly there is an imbalance in the time,
money and effort spent in supporting people and a lot of victim
support is done by voluntary organisations. I do not know if that
answers your question or gives you another dilemma.
Mr Luke: Thank you, Jo, thank you chair.
Q104 Chairman: How about other mechanisms
like public inquiries, official investigations? Do you think they
help as a means of uncovering the truth?
Ms Dover: They probably do in
certain circumstances, but I think what needs to be weighed up
is the benefits to the amount of people for those kinds of inquiries
and maybe evaluating whether there are other mechanisms that could
be used to be of more benefit to more people. There is a lot of
criticism about the Bloody Sunday inquiry, for example, and how
much money has been spent for a particular incident; I do not
think we take a particular view on that, from our organisation's
perspective it is about looking at what are the benefits of such
inquiries in the longer term, not just for the people directly
involved but where that fits in a peace process, for example.
Q105 Chairman: Presumably the Bloody
Sunday inquiry has not done much to help any victims in Great
Britain. Do you think there is anything in particular that would
benefit the people that you are set up to try and help, ie victims
in Great Britain, is there any particular incident that you think
might be served by having, not that sort but some sort of official
inquiry?
Ms Dover: At the moment I cannot
think of one particular incident, but the way we would respond
to that is that what is missing probably in relation to GB is
an equality of treatment. I have heard some ex-soldiers say there
is the Bloody Sunday inquiry but where is the inquiry into when
the IRA did this to us? You could have inquiry after inquiry for
every single incident, so I think for me that is where some of
the useful processes are something like a truth process—which
is not going to deal with every single thing—story-telling
processes and archived experiences, there are lots of different
approaches that could be used. In the nature of inquiries it needs
to be coming from people who have been affected, that that is
what they want, and maybe that has not come from people in Great
Britain yet, or maybe it has been asked for and been ignored,
I do not profess to know everything about all of those things.
There is certainly a feeling that such a lot of money is spent
on one incident; people do not necessarily feel that the incident
does not warrant having an inquiry, but certainly the amount of
money that has been spent and then the allocation of only £500,000
to deal with victims in Great Britain via us, when we are only
a small organisation with only two of us on a project—there
are a large number of people affected here: 350,000 soldiers served
in Northern Ireland, over 2,000 people were injured, a sixth of
the people killed were from here, so I think it is about how that
balances really. I do not know if that answers your question.
Q106 Chairman: Thank you very much indeed,
it has been very helpful and nice that we were able to listen
to your evidence at last; renewed apologies about last week, but
it has got you down to the big city twice.
Ms Dover: We are really pleased
to have been asked, firstly, and with the press release that was
sent out there was a bit of scepticism about whether people from
here would be listened to, and we have actually gone back and
said they are listening to us, we are going to give evidence,
please submit something, so I think you may get some more submissions.
Chairman: We have certainly listened;
thank you very much for coming. The Committee is adjourned.
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