Examination of Witness (Questions 220-239)
SIR KENNETH
BLOOMFIELD
19 MARCH 2008
Q220 Chairman: How do you target them?
Do you ask everyone to apply? Do you means-test them?
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: The trouble
is that government records, when they are not being lost, sometimes
disappear for all sorts of other reasons and, unhappily, it is
not the case that the criminal injuries compensation files from
the 1970s are all conveniently available. Undoubtedly people would
have to furnish some proof that they had been through this experience
and this was the compensation they got. Could I just make another
point? In the process of looking at this issue of criminal injuries
compensation, each of the three of us went to different jurisdictions
to have a look at how they tackled these issues, and I chose to
go to Israel because, as it happens, I have a very good contact
there in the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. It was extraordinarily
interesting because their approach to compensation was entirely
different from the British one where you have a once-for-all solution,
you appear before the compensation Board, or in Northern Ireland
it used to be the courts, and they make a judgment on what you
are due, about the effect of your disabilities and so on. Three
or four years down the line the factors weighing on that judgment
may have changed, they may have thought, "Yes, he ought to
be capable of working again but he has proved not to be capable
of working again". They have quite a different system in
Israel where you can periodically revisit the situation of somebody
who has been affected by violence, you can reassess the situation
and change their supportive status. I found that very interesting.
Q221 Chairman: A bit like a disability
benefit that is paid as a regular sum?
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: I think
it is better not to have a once-for-all settlement in these cases.
The reason why I did not recommend it in this case was, after
all, law on compensation in Northern Ireland had to be passed
through the Westminster Parliament where the great majority of
members are not members from Northern Ireland and could we conceivably
get away with a system radically different and more generous than
the one that applies to people in Great Britain. Nevertheless,
I would say to you when I looked at the situation in Israel, where
the disposition of government, of course, is to regard everybody
as being in the frontline, in a sense—first of all, they
have a citizens' army and, secondly, there are a lot of civilian
casualties, attacks and so on—I was struck by the fact that
they did not reach once-for-all judgments about the long-term
needs of people who had been affected.
Q222 Chairman: Let me pursue this,
if I may. If you or any of us was badly injured in an accident
and because of that injury unable to work, the state has a means
whereby we are given a not very generous or handsome benefit but,
nevertheless, a benefit on a regular basis until we are able to
return to work or if we are never able to return we have that
until we receive our retirement benefits when the overlapping
benefits regulation comes into force and so on. Are you saying
that eligibility for such a benefit would be the proper way to
compensate those who have suffered in this way in addition to
what they might already receive?
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: Yes, that
is what I am saying. I am not suggesting for a moment, Chairman,
that it is easy to work out such a scheme in detail, it would
be a radical departure from what we have had previously.
Q223 Chairman: It would.
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: As you
know, we had Bertha McDougall in place as an interim Commissioner
and I had some meetings with her and thought her approach was
admirable.
Q224 Chairman: We would endorse that.
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: I thought
her views on all of this were extremely sensible. It seemed to
me that she too had identified this problem of the people who
had been left behind who had been treated properly on a statutory
basis under the laws that existed at the time but all these years
later on were still living with the consequences and could one
and should one be doing more for them.
Chairman: That is very helpful and we
will certainly pursue that.
Q225 Mr Murphy: Just on that particular
point, I think it is a very good idea to try and come up with
a scheme that would offer compensation. I have some experience
of probably one of the largest compensation schemes in the world
that is currently going through in the UK and that is the miners'
compensation.
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: Yes.
Q226 Mr Murphy: It has ended up splitting
families. This compensation goes back as far as 1954 and it depends
on the time someone spent underground and the level of disability.
We have had people coming up who have denied they have got brothers
and sisters in order to claim the compensation themselves. In
practice it would be extremely difficult to put something like
that in place. Nevertheless, of the people we spoke to yesterday,
families of victims who have taken their cases through the HET
and Ombudsman, not one person mentioned compensation, what they
wanted in the main was to try and find out what happened to their
loved ones. Generally, in many cases they felt they had not been
given any information at all and what they sought for themselves
was the circumstances in which their loved ones died and the details
surrounding that. Whilst I am sure compensation will assist some
people who are struggling economically, the majority we spoke
to wanted to find out exactly what had happened and wanted the
truth.
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: Without
being in any way critical of the people you have seen, I am very
sympathetic to the kind of people you have seen, they have all
suffered dreadfully, but those who present themselves on these
occasions tend to be the activists. As I said to you, I met hundreds
of people and got hundreds of letters. What was striking was that
very few of them were saying, "I want anybody to be locked
up". Quite often they were saying, "Yes, I would like
to know the truth of what happened", that is undoubtedly
so. The activists perhaps are a bit unrepresentative in the degree
of stress they place on knowing the precise truth. The other thing
I am really bound to say to you is, in a sense, if you look at
what has been happening in Derry all this time at this enormous
expense, do we not all know pretty clearly what happened. Unless
that report comes out and says, "The situation is exactly
as the people out there believe", they will simply say it
is another whitewash.
Q227 Chairman: That is absolutely
correct and we all have real misgivings about the enormous expenditure
and share your view that money could have been put to better and
more productive use, but nevertheless that has happened and it
is where we are. What do you think about the two organisations
we visited yesterday? In your opinion, and we are beginning to
form ours, how is HET working? In your opinion, how is the office
of the Ombudsman working? Should there be some degree of rationalisation
between the two, as has been suggested to us?
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: You have
mentioned two of the important interests in all of this and the
other interest is the PSNI.
Q228 Chairman: HET is part of that.
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: Of course,
you are right. He has been making it clear that he is a bit concerned
that so much activity is being devoted to looking back into these
retrospective, previously regarded as dead cases that there is
not adequate resource to deal with the current situation. Although,
on the one hand, it is wonderful to have the degree of political
stability we have got, and I would not have bet on it and it is
marvellous to be there, nevertheless there is still a lot of crime
going on in Northern Ireland which needs to be addressed. For
me, there seems something rather perverse about a situation where
over a great many years a large number of people were very properly
convicted for committing atrocious crimes and then in the context
of the political settlement the jails were emptied and they are
all out again. For what purpose do we devote quite so much of
a resource, human resource and financial resource, to pursuing
all of these old cases because clearly what we are not going to
do is end up locking more people up. I thank God that nobody got
hurt, but our house was blown up around us and I often reflect
from that day to this that nobody has ever come and said, "You
might be interested to know we are pretty sure we know who did
it in a generic way. We have not got witnesses who are willing
to come into a court and say so". That might have given me
some modest degree of satisfaction, but it does not happen. I
understand that. Certainly if you deal with the relatives of the
disappeared, as I do, they know what happened but what they want
is a grave to visit and to go through the traditional ceremonies
and all the rest of it.
Q229 Chairman: Of course. One thing
that keeps coming up as we talk to people is if and when should
there be a line drawn, to use that oft-quoted expression. Do you
believe that there is a time when we should stop looking at the
past or do you believe that so long as there is one grieving relative
wanting to see what they call "closure" we should continue
with our present system or something like it?
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: This might
seem a very bureaucratic answer but I am afraid I am a child of
my upbringing. It is not so much a yes or no question as it is
a how question. It seems to me we have created very elaborate
looking into the past search engines which have been very, very
expensive and if we are going to go on doing this at all we really
do need to find some simpler, less costly, to be blunt about it
less law borne, mechanism. I would not rate very high amongst
my order of priorities the enrichment of lawyers. Some of my best
friends are lawyers, indeed my daughter was originally a lawyer
but is now doing other things.
Chairman: She saw the error of her ways!
Q230 Sammy Wilson: Sir Kenneth, can
I ask one question. When you were doing your report, and maybe
I am wrong in this assumption, at that stage the victim industry
had not grown to the extent that it has today.
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: That is
correct.
Q231 Sammy Wilson: So you probably
did hear in a very genuine way the concerns of individuals and
a lot of them were economic at that stage. Given the fact that
in the interim period we now have, as you have described it, and
I think quite rightly described it, a fairly elaborate victims
industry in Northern Ireland and that in itself is driving a lot
of this desire to delve into the past for various reasons, and
there are lots of different agendas as well. Given the climate
that there is now around the past, do you think it is possible
to easily draw a line without creating quite a lot of political
pressure and without making the victims feel that they have been
short-changed?
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: The victims'
community does remain fractured. It is no longer the case that
even in theory you could imagine one organisation representing
the victims to which they would all subscribe. Although personally
I find it a clumsy situation to have four Victims Commissioners,
in a sense I can understand why we have arrived at that. There
are people in our community who are more comfortable talking to
one sort of person than another. I wish it were otherwise but
that does seem to be the reality. My own wish would be that as
many people as possible should be able to remove the word "victim"
from their foreheads. There are people who were not injured themselves
who are almost making a lifelong career of all of this and it
would be a great thing if one could wean some people away from
that attitude.
Q232 Chairman: On this business of
the four Commissioners, and you say you understand why—I
suppose we can all say we understand why—is it really desirable?
You have not got four Ombudsmen, have you? Would it not be better
to have just one Victims Commissioner?
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: Maybe
one schizophrenic would be a compromise.
Q233 Chairman: Do you have a candidate
in mind!
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: Far be
it from me as a mere bureaucrat to go into the politics of the
situation. I would simply say I do not regard it as an ideal outcome
but I can understand why we have got there.
Q234 Kate Hoey: Sir Kenneth, you
were talking about the victims industry, but do you think there
is also an ex-policemen's jobs industry growing up because in
HET there are numbers of people being flown in from England staying
over during the week and then being flown back and that is hugely
costly. Do you think that is helpful in the long-term?
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: I do come
back, boringly, to the idea of prioritisation. Dealing with the
victims, dealing with the past, is a priority and how high do
we rate it. I pick up the morning paper and I read, for example,
that at a time of housing crisis the co-ownership scheme has been
shut down because there is not the money at the moment to keep
operating it. I ask myself in that situation how sensible is it
to be spending such a lot of money on some of these other things.
One cannot say absolutely they are wrong things to do but I do
ask whether it is a sensible order of priorities. I am a great
believer in doing practical things for people, frankly.
Q235 Kate Hoey: We are where we are
and it exists at the moment, Sir Hugh Orde decided there was going
to be an HET. Are you saying really it should be scaled down and
they should only look at cases where the families come forward
specifically and ask for them to be looked at? They are obviously
taking up every case whether anyone has asked or not.
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: I think
there is something to be said for that. I only encounter Hugh
Orde as he jogs along the coastal path occasionally. Having said
that, the police, like all other public bodies, have a finite
resource and I am sure Sir Hugh asks himself from time to time
is it really sensible that quite so much of our manpower is devoted
to this.
Q236 Chairman: Sir Hugh is publicly
on record as expressing concern, which is one of the reasons why
this Committee is looking into this matter to make recommendations.
I do not want to misrepresent you, and it is particularly important
we do not misrepresent you when we are considering our report,
but in answer to Kate Hoey you said, as I understand it, that
you would favour a system whereby an investigation is only triggered
if the family requests it.
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: I think
that might be too limited a remit. I do think that we could trust
the police force to be more selective about this, frankly.
Q237 Sammy Wilson: Sir Kenneth, say
you went down the route that has been suggested where it is only
when the family requests it, is the danger that the only ones
that would be investigated are those where people have an agenda
perhaps or are driven or are well connected and have joined a
victims club of one sort or another and some people who have stayed
clear of that, and whose case would warrant some investigation,
would miss out?
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: This may
seem rather a cowardly response to what you are saying to me.
I think what you have said is entirely fair about Ms Hoey's comments.
I think one needs to say to Sir Hugh, "Look, you clearly
are concerned that the extent of this work is diverting your officers
from what ought to be their current priorities and some kind of
selective process has got to apply, what are your proposals to
do that?" He has raised this issue. In my experience he is
a man of good judgment and I would pay a good deal of attention
to what he says about it.
Chairman: Of course, at the end of the
day this Committee has got to make some recommendations along
these lines and that is why we are very interested in what you
are saying.
Q238 Mr Fraser: Saying what you have
just said, do you think that the reputation of the police has
been damaged recently as a consequence of diverting attention
to these historic cases? Is that the perception of the community
in your opinion?
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: No, I
do not really think it has, there are other things that have somewhat
damaged the reputation of the police. This simply underlines the
fact that in a nasty, prolonged conflict not everybody always
behaves well or sensibly.
Q239 Mr Fraser: Given the fact you
talked about the selectivity one has to go through in terms of
how one deals with these issues, there have been some criticisms
of yourself and the work you have undertaken by some of the interested
groups, the victims community groups that you described earlier
as fractured. How do you respond to the fact that they believe
there is quite a lot of political controversy which is always
going to be around this with someone like you involved given your
background?
Sir Kenneth Bloomfield: It is
very interesting you raise this because literally the other day
I went to Magee, the University College in Derry, where INCORE,
which is a group concerned with this sort of issue, is running
a series of seminars on victims and so on. I was asked to take
part in a seminar and there was a representative of that kind
of sentiment who at the end tackled me and said, "Look, here
is your report and there's only one chapter in which you refer
to the issue of collusion. Doesn't this underline the fact that
at the end of the day you are a kind of Brit bureaucrat and you
are going to be jolly sure you don't embarrass anybody in Government"
and I said, "Well, there are quite a lot of other important
issues in there about which there is only one paragraph. Let me
tell you what I said about my contact with organisations like
yours. I said I have been approached by groups who strongly believe
that they are victims of collusion and unlawful action by state
forces. I am obviously not in a position to validate or dismiss
any of these claims, I am not a court of law. I am asked within
a few months to make recommendations about this very wide issue
but what I will undertake to do is to include in my report the
fact I have met you and you have a strong belief this is a grievance".
I was tackled about this in Derry just the other day, as I say,
and I said, "I still regard that as perfectly fair. If you
are looking for legal judgments about what happened, there are
people called judges to do that and if you are looking for moral
judgments there are authorities rather higher than me, all I can
do is say there are people who feel this way".
| 
