Examination of Witnesses (Questions 100-119)
MR AL
HUTCHINSON, MR
SAM POLLOCK
AND MR
JIM COUPLAND
20 FEBRUARY 2008
Q100 Sammy Wilson: Yes. For example,
would they be required, if there was sensitive intelligence information,
to perhaps do some sifting there to make sure names were not included?
Mr Hutchinson: First of all, I
would not expect them to do that because that is our job. The
police need to make available all intelligence. We have a very
secure intelligence unit, practice and process, so we would collect
that intelligence and make our own analysis and decision on the
relevance. We would expect all of it to be made available to us
and not certainly culled or—
Q101 Chairman: We are going to see,
at Sir Hugh's invitation, the Historical Enquiries Team and the
way they operate and how, and it obviously would make sense for
us to pay a visit to you and do the same. Would you be content
with that?
Mr Hutchinson: Absolutely, Chairman,
yes.
Chairman: Because I think this
would be helpful.
Q102 Sammy Wilson: Yes. Just two
other questions. The first one is the co-operation between yourselves
and retired police officers, who very often have left the service
and may be the subject of the inquiry which you are conducting.
It has been a fairly rocky relationship in the past. Do you believe
that that is improving, and do you see any evidence that because
of the emphasis on historic enquiries that actually still continues
to poison relationships between your organisation and the police?
Mr Hutchinson: I think we are
in a better place now than we were before. We have re-established
relationships with the Federation and I will be meeting the Retired
Officers' Association in a couple of weeks. I made it clear to
both groups that I will be saying things that they may not like,
but I think we can professionally talk about them. Will what we
do in the future challenge those relationships? I think it will,
but I do not think it is my role to shy from the truth and the
evidence. I know what the Office says and I believe it will follow
the evidence—I think the public needs to know that—within
the context of the time. So I think it is better, Mr Wilson, but
I think it will always be challenged and fractious, probably because
we are fundamentally opposed, perhaps, in this debate over historic
enquiries and the role the police carried out during the time.
If I contrast that with present relationships, I think they are
much stronger on the day to day cases that happen on the street
because usually they are not contentious issues, they are professional
issues that we deal with.
Q103 Sammy Wilson: Do you feel it
is right in your Office when you are making reports to emphasise
that you are very often judging cases in a context which is totally
different from the context in which those original investigations
and original police actions took place?
Mr Hutchinson: Actually, I shared
that view too as a reader of headlines before I came to this job
and when I started reading the reports I realised that every report
had a contextual element to it. I think what has happened is that
in the rush to headlines none of that is reported as well, so
I think there is a bit of onus on the press to put all of that
in context. Probably the most visual element that I can think
of is the Omagh investigation and the issue over the tainted evidence
in terms of low copy DNA. Nowadays it is not uncommon to turn
on the television and see the space-suited forensic officers collecting
evidence. Certainly in 1998 that was not happening and it was
not happening in 1972. There was an entire context to that, so
I think we are all being influenced by the one hour CSI television
shows in many ways. So I will continue to put context in every
report, and in fairness I think the Office did in the past, it
just probably was not picked up.
Q104 Sammy Wilson: Just one final
question. A lot of money is going into this. The whole idea was
to gain greater confidence in the police today from looking at
the actions of the past, but as a result of the enquiries you
have concluded to date how many police officers have either had
complaints against them upheld or there has been disciplinary
action, et cetera? For all of this money are we getting any greater
confidence, or do you believe your enquiries are instilling any
confidence, or indeed turning over stones which need to be turned
over and resulting in outputs which will satisfy those people
who demanded the enquiries in the first place?
Mr Hutchinson: There are several
points. I suspect you will have to ask the victims of the Troubles,
whether they are police officer families or victims of either
community, how they feel. What I am struck by when I have met
several victims, individually or as groups, is that that past
event, whether it was 30 years ago or 15 years ago is as vivid
today as it was at that time. Jim and I met some people in Londonderry
just a while ago and although it was 35 years ago as young men,
they are still visibly emotionally crying about the events which
happened to them, allegedly by the police. The Loughinisland Ireland
families—I had a very difficult meeting with them and what
struck me, apart from the emotion of the meeting, was that it
has become intergenerational. There is a young girl whose father
was killed and as a young woman now she feels that pain as much
as she did, yet it happened 15 plus years ago. So it is a very
present thing which I think has to be resolved. I think as police
officers our work is understood—and of course once police
officers are retired there is no internal discipline, so we are
looking at only evidentiary criminal prospects, to collect what
evidence we can. Truth is viewed differently by different people,
but we have tried to stick to evidence. So we have not put any
police officers in jail and we have substantiated failures in
investigation in the past, but we have also substantiated that
the police did their work solidly. We have tried to be fair and
impartial. Again, the headlines maybe do not reflect all that
work, but in fact it is probably 50:50 in terms of that.
Q105 Chairman: If your prime responsibility
is to engender public confidence in the police and to maintain
that confidence, is it possible to do that if you have this great
backlog of historic investigations which you are obliged to look
at, one accepts that, given the present structure? Is it really
possible to do the two things, even with the extra resources which
you have made quite plain you need?
Mr Hutchinson: No, it is not.
Just finishing off Mr Wilson's question and following on with
yours—is there confidence?—that is the very issue
which concerns me, that the past is bleeding into the confidence
of this present police organisation. What I want to make clear
is that those people victimised by the past really need a resolution.
Now, whether or not it is our Office or some office, or a combination,
it is important, but the confidence is diminishing in present
policing.
Q106 Chairman: That is what worries
me. Therefore, do you think it would be better if someone else,
some other office, did deal with this historic legacy and backlog?
Mr Hutchinson: Chairman, I would
have no objection to that, bracketed by the period of time we
are talking about, bearing in mind the Police Ombudsman now and
in the future will always have grave and exceptional historic
cases because time will move ahead, but for this period of time
it was entirely different. It is problematic. You have HET, ourselves,
inquest inquiries, all having different pieces of it and yet there
is no resolution of it all. So I would certainly endorse any mechanism—and
I would not be prescriptive of that—that would work, and
certainly our piece of gathering evidence to feed into that process
to assist.
Q107 Chairman: To get this absolutely
clear, because this is very, very important what you are saying,
you would yourself have no objection to there being, as it were,
a historic ombudsman dealing with the past in addition to yourself?
Mr Hutchinson: No, I would not.
Chairman: That is very interesting.
Thank you very much.
Q108 Stephen Pound: Just a couple
of quick points before we move on from this section, bearing in
mind this extraordinary and ever-increasing workload—and
I understand the normal physical constraints and the constraints
of the standard operational limitations that you suffer under—how
do you prioritise within that? Would it be in date order, would
it be on the size? Could you tell us for the record how you manage?
Mr Hutchinson: I can give you
some examples. Technically what we do is we use a prioritisation
matrix lifted out of ACPO in terms of all the cases, present and
past, which come in. We really have to juggle experience that
we acquired in Operation Ballast, for example, and Sam can speak
more if you need more detail.
Q109 Stephen Pound: I am sorry to
interrupt, but the ACPO matrix has two key salients within it.
One is the likelihood of resolution. The second one would not
apply in your case, I would have thought, it is where there is
the probability that the perpetrator is still active and may repeat
the crime. Those are not the only salients but they are two within
them. What would be the prime salients of the ACPO matrix as applicable
to your task?
Mr Hutchinson: I will just make
the point that both those cases could apply as well. I just want
to finish the point on Ballast. Just in terms of prioritisation,
to show you the challenges, that diverted the Office for—18
months, Sam?
Mr Pollock: Three years.
Mr Hutchinson: Three years altogether,
and so we had to put some cases to the side. That cost about £1.8
million in terms of diverted resources.
Q110 Stephen Pound: Collectively?
Mr Hutchinson: Yes. So it illustrates,
when you are talking about prioritisation, we just have a fixed
number of people, a fixed budget, and we really have to deal with
what comes in. The importance of that on the present is that in
fact the police, as a result, culled their informant list. They
did a whole number of things. The Surveillance Commissioner paid
closer attention. So it is a very live thing bleeding over into
the present, and of course we identified a number of murders which
had to go back to the police to actually reinvestigate as a result
of that. So when you look at a priority case it is beyond a matrix,
it is very much a judgmental quality of thing where we have to
make our best guess.
Q111 Kate Hoey: Sorry, I do not quite
understand. Just tell us in simple language how you decide your
priorities. You are beginning to tip, you say, the balance. How
do you decide the priorities of what you are going to deal with?
Is it "muggins's turn", whoever gets in first gets dealt
with first?
Mr Hutchinson: I am sorry, I did
not know the term.
Q112 Kate Hoey: That is what I mean
about priority. How do you decide?
Mr Hutchinson: I am sorry, I do
not mean to equivocate, but there is really no particular answer.
For example, the European Court decisions which come down to the
Secretary of State, Stalker, my judgment is that that is a priority.
Q113 Kate Hoey: So you judge?
Mr Hutchinson: Yes. We are almost
granted discretions.
Q114 Kate Hoey: I am not criticising
you, I am just trying to find out.
Mr Hutchinson: No, no, but we
are almost back to discretions.
Q115 Chairman: You have to be pragmatic
is what you are saying?
Mr Hutchinson: Well, we try to
be pragmatic. As a consequence, of course, we almost create this
hierarchy of victims again because we have to put some things
to the side, but there is a quality aspect to it in every case.
But we still run it through a prioritisation matrix which gets
us at least to the table, where we can consider relative cases.
Q116 Chairman: But you could the
more easily do this if you had this clear division, which you
have just said a few moments ago you would welcome, between past
and present and then you would be able to concentrate on your
prime duty of maintaining the confidence in the force as it is
and somebody else would be looking at these issues which need
resolution but which go back in some cases almost 40 years?
Mr Hutchinson: Well, I agree with
that, Chairman. I do not want to lose the point that something
has to be done about it. We are kind of one of the only games
in town, and therefore we have to treat it seriously.
Chairman: Indeed, and we will
have to make some recommendations at the end of the day, informed
by your evidence and other evidence, as to how we think this should
best be done, but it is very helpful to have that on the record.
Q117 Mr Murphy: Following on from
the Chairman's suggestion, Mr Hutchinson, if that was to go ahead,
almost the removal of the historic cases from your current workload,
do you think that would also require a similar set-up for the
police as well to ensure that there is confidence, even if it
is part of the PSNI who are actually seconded onto this team to
work exclusively on nothing else?
Mr Hutchinson: Two points. Absolutely,
I believe this agency group would have to be removed from the
police to have independence and to have the confidence of the
broad public, so there is no doubt the quality of the investigators
in there would have to be, in my view, primarily police officers,
senior investigators who are used to investigating murders, serious
crimes, link murders, a very complex business which goes back—Miss
Hoey talked about how we do it—certainly murder and less
primarily what we are dealing with, but not exclusively, any murder
case, that is really all we are dealing with. It leaves aside
the number of victims who have been injured through bombings and
attacks over the years, but that is somewhat tragic as well. Yes,
professional, separate from the police and severable from us.
That is why I mention that I really have two businesses to deal
with now. One is the past. The past could be severed from us,
the legal process, the legislators and certainly legal draftsmen,
but I believe it could be done
Q118 Mr Campbell: To pursue this
a bit further, is the elephant in the room? Today we were told
in the House of Commons we were told by the Secretary of State
that the Saville Inquiry is now over £181 million and still
not concluded and still not likely to lead to closure or resolution,
and that is not to take account of the other series of inquiries,
the whole issues that you have outlined in terms of how you are
getting weighed down. Some people are saying there is no end to
this. There is simply no end to it. Either we pour hundreds of
millions into trying to resolve something which is irresolvable
or we pull the shutters down. You seem to be saying, as far as
the Ombudsman's Office is concerned, that you imagine a third
party should be created to deal with that. Is it as stark as that?
Mr Hutchinson: Let me say this,
Mr Campbell: I think it is a matter for Parliament, for the legislators,
to decide on the resolution of those issues. I am trying to focus
myself as a former professional policeman, and now in this job,
to say that as part of that resolution (whatever it is) this piece
of work has to be done. We are doing it on an evidentiary basis
now. Somebody has to continue to do that. I will continue to do
it until the legislature, Parliament, says I cannot.
Q119 Chairman: You are also saying
you cannot adequately do it with what you have got at your disposal?
Mr Hutchinson: That is clear,
yes. I am not trying to avoid your question, Mr Campbell, but
I think that is probably—
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