APPENDIX 10
Memorandum submitted by Falls Community
Council
Falls Community Council is a community development
umbrella organisation for the community sector in west Belfast.
The mission of Falls Community Council is to achieve human rights,
social justice and economic equality through active engagement
with the process of conflict resolution, political transition
and social transformation. Consequently, Falls Community Council
is pleased to have this opportunity to comment on the Office of
the Police Ombudsman. The existence and work of the Police Ombudsman
is one of the pioneering and most encouraging effects of the transformation
of policing in the north of Ireland which was promised six years
ago in the Good Friday Agreement.
The Northern Ireland Affairs Committee has shown
interest in policing previously, with an inquiry into policing
which preceded the Good Friday Agreement. The Committee's interest
in policing at that time no doubt helped to confirm the view that
the status quo on policing in the north of Ireland had failed
and to strengthen the demand for wholesale transformation of policing
which was later enshrined in the Good Friday Agreement. More importantly,
the Committee will also be well positioned to help to convince
those who question the need for police accountability, or those
who are undermining the Office of the Police Ombudsman. Falls
Community Council submits to the Committee that he only way to
create a truly new beginning to policing in the north of Ireland,
which is capable of gaining consent from those most alienated
from policing institutions, is through demonstrating that the
police can be and will be held fully to account.
However, there is also the danger that the Committee
indulges those who have set themselves against the transformation
of policing, some of whom appear amongst the ranks of the PSNI.
Not only would that be a terrible waste of the Committee's valuable
time and resources, but it would also be of no assistance to accelerating
and deepening the transformation of policing and the implementation
of the Patten report. Arguments about the need for a thoroughly
independent, fully resourced, and effectively empowered accountability
body for policing in the north of Ireland, were explored in detail
by the Patten Commission over many months. The findings and recommendations
of the Patten Commission were clear and the rationale for creating
the Office of the Police Ombudsman was explained. Assuming that
the Committee agrees with those findings and recommendations and
wishes to facilitated the long-awaited, much needed, full implementation
of the Patten report, then an important reference point for the
Committee's deliberations on this subject must be the Patten report
itself:
"The Police Ombudsman should:
— be, and be seen to be an important
institution in the governance of Northern Ireland and should be
staffed and resourced accordingly." (para.6.41)
— take initiatives, not merely react
to specific complaints received. S/he should have the power to
initiate inquiries or investigations even if no specific complaint
has been received."
— be responsible for compiling data
on trends and patterns of complaints against the police and the
accumulation of complaints against individual officers . . . work
with police to address issues arising from this data
— have a dynamic cooperative relationship
with both the police and the Policing Board and others . . ."
"We recommend that there should be a commissioner
for covert law enforcement in Northern Ireland . . . and a complaints
tribunal with full powers to investigate cases referred to it,
directly or through the Police Ombudsman . . ." (para 6.45)
"We recommend that all officers—those
now in service as well as all future recruits—should be
obliged to register their interests and associations, and that
the register should be held both by the police service and the
Police Ombudsman." (para 15.16)
"We recommend that use of Plastic Bullets..should
be justified in a report to the Policing Board, which should be
copied to the Police Ombudsman...video camera recordings should
be made of incidents in which use of Plastic Bullets is authorised"
(para 9.17)
"The Ombudsman should exercise the right
to investigate and comment on police policies and practices, where
these are perceived to give rise to difficulties, even if the
conduct of individual officers may not itself be culpable"
". . . we are in no doubt that the RUC has
had several officers within its ranks over the years who have
abused their position..It is not good enough to suggest, as some
people have, that one should somehow accept that every organisation
has `bad apples'. They should be dealt with." (para 5.19)
"we are not persuaded that the RUC has in
the past had adequate systems in place to monitor and, when necessary,
act upon complaints against officers and civil claim awards."
(para 5.20)
"The presumption should be that everything
should be available for public scrutiny unless it is in the public
interest—not the police interest—to hold it back"
(para 6.38)
"The Ombudsman should have access to all
past reports on the RUC" (para 6 41)
Obviously, the transformation of policing has
not yet been completed, and the report of the Independent Commission
on Policing (aka the Patten Report) remains to be fully implemented.
Some of the issues outstanding and problems which have emerged
do indeed impinge on the ability of the Office of the Police Ombudsman
to effectively make the police accountable. However, FCC respectfully
submits to this committee that it would be very ill-informed and
unwarranted to conclude that all, or indeed, many of those difficulties
are the fault of the Police Ombudsman. Indeed, the Police Ombudsman
has shown her office very open to discussing and exploring difficulties
which may be perceived by others, in an engaging, tactful and
transparent manner which many other statutory bodies and public
authorities do well to follow.
Some of the problems which have the greatest
impact on the confidence in the nationalist community in the effectiveness
of police accountability mechanisms, especially in disadvantaged
areas, include the following :
— The fact that British Army can
use, and has used, plastic bullets without being accountable to
the Police Ombudsman despite the deployment of British soldiers
in policing operations;
— The fact that the decision-making
which governs the actions of the PSNI has not, to date, been subject
to public scrutiny. This includes the smokescreen operational
independence used to screen a variety of ongoing controversial
activities from thorough, independent investigation, eg: the premise
for forcing entry and carrying weapons into homes. Also of concern
to many people are the patterns of deployment and tactics used
by the PSNI in public order situations. New powers afforded to
the Police Ombudsman may permit effective, independent scrutiny
of such actions but it remains to be seen how co-operative the
PSNI will be.
— The fact that of 374 cases investigated
and referred to the Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP) by the
Police Ombudsman during the last three years, criminal charges
have been brought in just 20 cases. There is a strong belief in
the nationalist community that the DPP shows preferential treatment
to members of the PSNI. That belief is accentuated by the DPP's
stewardship of several Diplock Court, political prosecutions in
recent years. However, the problem in regard to wrongdoing by
the PSNI is that the DPP, not the Police Ombudsman, takes control
of the case before the court. Unfortunately, the actions and decisions
of the DPP can lead to great disappointment in the outcome of
a complaint, for a complainant and the community from which they
come, even though the complaint was first made to the Police Ombudsman.
The recent spectacle of the Raymond Boyle case sadly illustrates
this problem.
— The fact that the Policing Board
appears indifferent to the results of investigations by the Police
Ombudsman. For example, the Police Ombudsman's inquiry into the
investigation of Sean Brown's killing revealed very serious problems
inside both the RUC and the PSNI. The fact that key evidence,
relating to Sean Brown's killing, was stolen by members of the
PSNI after the Police Ombudsman's investigators began their inquiries
is something which should have been treated with the utmost gravity
by the Policing Board. The people responsible should have been
held to account by the Policing Board having been exposed by the
Police Ombudsman. The impotence of the Policing Board does confound
hopes that the police will be held fully to account for any act
or omission.
— The fact that serial or repeat
offenders cannot at present be effectively tracked. The development
of systems to support trends analysis and the resources to such
analysis was always intended to be available to the Police Ombudsman.
— The fact that the PSNI Chief
Constable is the one who retains details about the notifiable
memberships of the PSNI. That register was to have been also held
by the Police Ombudsman.
— The fact that an onus appears
to rest on the complainant to provide compelling evidence to support
his/her complaint. There is of course an onus on a complainant
to assist with the investigation of his/her complaint. However,
some complainants still feel disenchanted with the process governing
complaints including the disclosure of evidence and statements
relating to the complaint.
Falls Community Council would like to give credit
to the Police Ombudsman, Mrs Nuala O Loan, for making herself
and her staff for investing time and effort in discussing the
experiences and views of local communities in different parts
of Belfast. The promotion of a dialogue about policing and the
creation of truly accountable policing service is of vital importance.
That dialogue needs to involve all of our society, but particularly
those who have historically been most marginalised from policing.
Against a background of police impunity, the establishment of
confidence in the most marginalised communities that the police
will be made accountable for their actions is a touchstone for
the new beginning to policing. That is why the Office of Police
Ombudsman has been, and will continue to be so important and also
why the Police Ombudsman deserves the Committee's encouragement
and active support.
24 March 2005
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