Examination of Witness (Questions 320-339)
MRS SANDRA
PEAKE AND
MR ALAN
MCBRIDE
19 MARCH 2008
Q320 Chairman: So you are heavily
dependent upon volunteers?
Mrs Peake: Yes, we are.
Q321 Chairman: Drawn from both communities?
Mrs Peake: Yes.
Q322 Chairman: It sounds to me that
you are doing some very valuable work. How do you set about your
work? Do you look for people or do they look for you? Is it referral
by personal knowledge or recommendation? How does this happen?
Mrs Peake: Over time it has changed.
I came into WAVE in 1995 and at that stage there were still many
people coming forward in terms of the death of their loved one
and, therefore, our role was more proactive in that we would have
made contact with families to let them know that support services
existed. Thankfully, that has changed and now we have a greater
number of people making contact with us directly. Word of mouth
is a major factor. Also, we have a very clear support role and
trust is a very big issue within communities. Our referral base
is very diverse, from political parties to local clergy to doctors,
the whole spectrum of health professionals.
Q323 Chairman: When you say local
clergy, you mean both Roman Catholic and Protestant, do you not?
Mrs Peake: Yes.
Q324 Chairman: If the Roman Catholic
father or Presbyterian minister refers a widow to you—I
am not asking you to break any confidences—what sort of
support and help do you give?
Mrs Peake: Our first point of
contact will be to determine where that person wants to be seen.
We have a very extensive outreach network, we have people who
go out to people's homes. To be truthful, if you relied on people
to come in to any of the centres without that first step it would
be very difficult. Sometimes people need that service brought
to them. We would then see what we can do to provide support to
them. We have a continuum of support services on offer from befriending
or a listening ear service to different groups for different issues,
I suppose, to an advice and welfare function.
Q325 Chairman: Can you give us some
specific examples of the sort of help you give? It is helpful
for us to know. Do you give financial help or do you merely give
counselling help? What sorts of things do you do?
Mrs Peake: The help that we give
will depend on what needs individuals have. We can provide counselling
help and some people will go into counselling with registered
Masters level therapists to a set standard that we have. Other
people may want just to be visited and have support for some time
and it would be through that ongoing support that their needs
would be identified. Others will be facing financial or other
difficulties, housing issues, benefit issues, and that support
is available. In some cases they may be facing difficulties for
their children and we have a youth service, so that youth service
might work with them. For some it will be to meet other people
who have shared some of their experiences and we have access into
groups of people who have a variety of experiences, some might
be bereavement, some injury.
Q326 Chairman: How do you give financial
help and of what sort of order? I will tell you why I ask. Sir
Kenneth, when he gave his evidence this morning which, sadly,
you did not hear, said that one of the things he would like to
see is some form of structured benefit system to help victims
over a longer period. Once he recognised the difficulties he felt
that this would be a very sensible, practical way of doing it.
First of all, what, presumably limited, financial help can you
give? Secondly, would you welcome something along the lines Sir
Kenneth advocates?
Mrs Peake: Firstly, our financial
help is not monetary, it would be advice. We will signpost people
to available help and work with them as necessary to access that
help. Secondly, we would welcome a revision of the system. One
of our concerns is the fact that some people have suffered very
detrimentally financially and emotionally and it has had a long-term
impact and at present there is not a centralised funding measure
that will adequately meet their needs.
Chairman: That was his point.
Q327 Mr Fraser: You are obviously
spending a great deal of time with these people. What were you
doing before you were doing this? What are your backgrounds as
individuals?
Mrs Peake: My background is nursing.
Mr McBride: I was a pig butcher.
Q328 Mr Fraser: So you have come
to this because you felt passionately about trying to help these
people. Obviously you have come in that regard, have you not?
Mrs Peake: Yes. I came in 1995
and at that stage it was to develop support services.
Q329 Chairman: When did the pig butcher
come in?
Mr McBride: I got involved in
it because my wife was murdered in 1993. It was her father's fish
shop and she worked in the next block to where I had the butcher's
shop, so for very personal reasons I did not feel I wanted to
go back and spend my time doing that, so I went and retrained
as a youth worker and have been working in youth work ever since
basically. That is my background. Since I left school at 16 I
worked as a butcher up until I was 29.
Q330 Mr Fraser: In terms of what
you have just described, Mr McBride, and I am sorry to ask you
these questions but it is important we know your background, you
have just described a situation where you had to deal with your
life and you have moved on clearly from being here and what you
are trying to achieve. How can we see closure for other people?
You heard some of the evidence just now and there is a great,
complicated array of opportunities ahead of us, and obviously
some threats to the same in the way that have been described in
conversations we have had, but how do we find a way forward jointly
so that as a society here in Northern Ireland we can eventually
move forward together?
Mr McBride: If I can tell my own
particular story and I will probably have to contextualise it
by saying in all cases you probably will not find closure for
folk, and that is a reality we need to come to terms with. Regardless
of what you put in place there are going to be people out there
who will largely remain outside of whatever it is you put in place.
I was at some of the Bradley-Eames consultative group meetings
very recently and heard a number of people speak to the floor
and what they want to see happen is to would have the people who
murdered their loved ones back in prison and people who were linked
to paramilitary organisations out of the government of Northern
Ireland, and with the best will in the world we all know those
things are not going to happen. We need to say to people, "If
that is what you want in terms of dealing with the past, we are
sorry but we really can't deliver that", so what we have
to find is other ways of dealing with this kind of stuff. It is
very important we say to those people they are not going to get
the sense of justice they feel they want. Let us be honest, there
is probably nobody in this room who would want to deny them that,
yet we are all realists and know that the political process has
moved on and for the first time, certainly in my lifetime, we
have a stable government here and we do not want to see that go,
so we have to say to those people, "We are sorry, but we
can't give you what you are asking for". What we then have
to do is concentrate on other things that are going to try to
be helpful to the process but also remember for some folk it may
not be enough. One of the things that helped me a lot was I was
quite fortunate when my wife died that she happened to be working
in the Health Service and I am sure you all know that when you
get compensation you get compensated for loss of earnings and
because she had a good job the compensation I got was reasonable.
Obviously you cannot compensate for loss of life, and no-one is
suggesting you can, but the compensation I got meant that I was
able to leave work to go back to university to study and that
gave me sufficient mobility in terms of being able to move around
to do different jobs, something which I find invaluable and means
I am able to put something back. Beyond that, the other thing
that was most helpful to me was being given the ability to tell
my story, and I have done that at lots of different meetings and
groups, some small groups of maybe three to four people, some
large groups. I gave the Bloody Sunday Lecture in Derry two years
ago and for me that has been very helpful in being able to come
forward and talk about what I have been through and how I have
dealt with it. That is something that we probably need to look
at as well. The other thing that has been very helpful to me,
and I do not think you can legislate for this, is the kind of
people I have been able to surround myself with and get involved
with through my work and other things. I have met with republican
and loyalist ex-prisoners. Initially I was very reluctant to do
so, I was very suspicious about what it was that they wanted from
me and how we could relate together, but after a while, meeting
and discussing a whole range of things, you start to not demonise
people so much you have got to know because they took part in
the conflict. I have been able to have discussions around things
that had you said to me ten years ago I would have been having
discussions on I probably would have said, "Absolutely no
way". When I think of where people are at the moment and
see some people involved in victims' work, they have surrounded
themselves with people of a like mind so there is no challenge.
The people who come to the groups in some instances are held back
because they cannot move on because the people who are representing
them are not moving on either. I was fortunate that I was able
to have those experiences. I do not know how you could legislate
for some of that stuff, which is why I think it is particularly
difficult.
Q331 Mr Fraser: Are you working closely
with Healing Through Remembering?
Mr McBride: I sit on their Board.
Q332 Mr Fraser: I thought there was
an integration there!
Mr McBride: And I chair one of
their groups looking at the memorial museum. It is through organisations
like Healing Through Remembering that I have got to know people
who were former combatants and other victims. There is no one-size-fits-all,
which is why certainly Healing Through Remembering, and we would
support this view as well, are in favour of a menu of options
for dealing with the past.
Q333 Mr Fraser: In terms of how one
moves that forward, the idea of a single integrated approach rather
than different historic inquiries, would you feel that may be
a way forward to focus on rather than it being, with all respect,
a disparate set-up as it could currently be seen, or not?
Mrs Peake: There are a number
of options for families and some of them are driven by their circumstances.
If you look at our work with families some of it involves their
work with the Historical Enquiries Team and for other families
it is around the Police Ombudsman Sapphire Team, and for some
it is around the Commission for the Disappeared because of the
very nature of their circumstances. If you are saying that one
body could do all that, I am not sure about that because each
of those cases in terms of the mechanism and the way they are
set up has benefits for some families, maybe not for all, and
it is driven by the individual nature of their circumstances.
Q334 Chairman: We were thoroughly
impressed by the sensitivity displayed both by HET and the Ombudsman's
office and we were fairly impressed, I think, by the thoroughness
of their inquiries. Would that be your impression too?
Mrs Peake: Yes. I think they have
taken time to look at their protocols. They have taken time in
relation to accessing training and other support mechanisms. Also,
they have taken time to listen to both positive and what they
may consider as negative feedback and have learnt from that in
relation to how they inform their practice. The role of family
liaison has been very important for families because in the past
they might not necessarily have had that, so the fact they have
somebody who starts with them and, hopefully, will finish with
them is something which is very important. From speaking to a
number of people who have come through that process from the early
1970s, the fact that someone is sitting down, listening, coming
back with answers, adhering to the promises and undertakings they
have given, has validity. Even to record at the time that an investigation
was not adequate or things were overlooked, there is something
very positive for families in relation to having that process.
Q335 Chairman: Would you go along
with that, Mr McBride?
Mr McBride: Yes.
Q336 Mr Murphy: It says here you
are dealing with 3,600 people, and you have probably had more
contact than any other organisation, I would suggest, in Northern
Ireland, so you are probably best-placed to understand the requirements
of those individuals and families that you deal with. Compensation
was mentioned earlier by the first witness today. Would you see
that as an essential part of moving forward, either to revisit
the actual compensation people received, and in some cases it
was not very much, or to improve the benefit system to recognise
the economic problems people have suffered as a result of this?
Mrs Peake: Absolutely. We have
undertaken two recent consultations across the organisation and
one of the central issues that came out of both those consultations
in relation to dealing with the past was the issue of compensation.
Many people, I suppose, have viewed it in terms of lack of recognition,
the fact that they have been taken to places they would not have
been in but for what happened. At a level, whether it is re-looking
at compensation or looking at what can be set up to meet the needs
of those people and to be needs reflective, that would be very
welcome.
Mr McBride: Some of the stuff
that came out of our research, particularly with folk who suffered
injury in the Troubles, was the compensation they got in many
instances did not take on board the long-term nature of their
problems, so as their problems got worse over the years the compensation
was no longer adequate.
Q337 Chairman: This was the point
Sir Kenneth was seeking to make and why he was rather in favour
of a benefit . Clearly you would both concur with that?
Mrs Peake: Yes.
Q338 Chairman: Another point Sir
Kenneth made was that on balance he was inclined to be favourably
disposed towards an amnesty. What is your view there?
Mr McBride: For me, it begs the
question in terms of the whole Truth Commission idea and whether
or not in all instances you have to buy the truth. I think you
probably do, you have to have some carrot in order to encourage
people. I think it was Mr Wilson who spoke earlier about folk
who maybe had moved on and become teachers or businessmen, et
cetera, and how do you encourage those folk to come forward and
tell the truth. An amnesty would not be a carrot at all because
they were never brought before a court, they never had a criminal
record anyway. It is something we have not really discussed, to
be honest with you. Any time that I have mentioned it within the
victim survivor community that we work in, I know many people
who were affected by the conflict have not been in favour of it,
they see all sorts of problems. It is something that we need to
have more discussion around. My personal opinion is I think we
gave away all the carrots when we signed the Good Friday Agreement
and perhaps if we had it linked with truth for prisoners, truth
for guns or something like that, there would have been some more
bargaining power.
Q339 Chairman: You cannot go back.
Mr McBride: We cannot go back
and the bargaining power we have at the moment is very weak. There
is an issue around people not having criminal records any longer
which might mean they can travel to other countries and get jobs,
et cetera, and maybe you could look at that, but it is a very
weak bargaining chip. That is a personal opinion.
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