Examination of Witnesses (Questions 500-519)
SIR HUGH
ORDE, MR
ALISTAIR FINLAY,
MR PETER
SHERIDAN AND
MR JOHN
BRANNIGAN
13 MAY 2008
Q500 Chairman: Thank you for that,
and thank you and, through you, to all your officers for what
they do to ensure that this place is as normal as possible. As
you rightly said, the universal condemnation of this appalling
act and the community assistance rendered to the stricken officer
does itself indicate how far we have come forward even since this
Committee has been coming over in the last three years. Sir Hugh,
as you know, we are looking at HET. I would like to thank you
for making it possible for us to have that visit. Mr Cox and his
colleagues could not have been more helpful or welcoming. They
gave us the opportunity to meet a random selection of victims'
families who, of course, had different views on the outcome but
were unanimous, I might say, in praising the sensitivity of those
who had handled their cases. That is something that has come up
again and again in our conversations, both public and private.
Thank you for that. One thing we were very surprised to learn,
Sir Huge, when we went to the HET headquarters was that all cases
are being investigated, even those where there have been prosecutions
and where families have never requested further information. I
even came across one where the victim had been a very old man
when he was killed in the 1970s and a bachelor with no known relatives.
I think the Committee does just wonder whether this is a justifiable
use of resources, both financial and human. I wonder if you would
like to say a word about that.
Sir Hugh Orde: I will make some
very brief comments and hand over to Alistair or John. I think
we made a decision early on in terms of reinvestigating every
one that it was around recognising whilst many were solved, they
were not solved in the holistic sense, someone may have been convicted
but there may be other people outstanding. There is also the harsh
reality that these people were not killed by individuals or maverick
activity, these were organised killer gangs, serial killers, going
around, so to miss one out means you could miss a series of crimes
where this was a critical element, so it was around joining them
together. As far as the families are concerned, I think the odd
case may seem a bit strange and if someone does not want investigation
we do not want to make it worse for them but, again, doing the
basic reinvestigation which was described to you does enable us
to make sure we do not miss perhaps critical elements of a series
of crimes. Interestingly, and I am sure Dave will have mentioned
this, a number of people, whilst they do not engage at the beginning,
one of the reasons we may overrun is when they hear we have done
it they want to engage at the end. In other words, the questions
we would like to get before we start the review we get at the
end. I do not know if Alistair or John would like to add anything
to that.
Mr Finlay: I think that covers
most of it, the interconnections between the different cases.
The other thing to be remembered is where you either have no family
or no family engagement it generally means that the scope and
size of the amount of work that is done is smaller. A lot of the
work is the unanswered questions that come from victims' families
and those are the answers they are looking for. Those who do not
have family engagement are probably smaller in scope but it means
we have then got the complete picture and we have joined up that
tapestry of interconnected incidents some of which, until you
revisit them, you do not know are interconnected. John deals with
the intelligence so maybe sees a bigger picture.
Mr Brannigan: What we would like
to do is get it right once and not to have to go over cases again.
We find that where you get fragmented families, and we do get
grandchildren coming along enquiring as to the death of their
loved one much later after the process has started, and that is
all through the media where they hear of HET and we get letters
from as far away as Australia and America enquiring about their
distant relative and the fact they have no near relatives, we
feel that it is necessary to open each case and go through all
the different areas within that investigation and have it complete
and it is there forever. We will place that file within the central
store and it is there for anyone to pick up in future years.
Q501 Chairman: Obviously what you
say is on the record and people will be able to reflect on that,
and the Committee will. We were told by the Retired Police Officers'
Association, Sir Hugh, that some families have been, as they put
it, "re-traumatised" by the investigation. Are you aware
of this? How common a reaction is that?
Sir Hugh Orde: You will have met
my Family Liaison Officer or someone at the HET, so I will leave
it to the experts to talk about it. Generally speaking, my gut
reaction is that would be highly unusual. I do remember a case
when I was on Stevens where we had to reinvestigate a case which
to say we re-traumatised the family would not be right but it
was a family that went through some pain because of what we were
doing, which in a way lends itself to the wider debate about how
you deal with the past, I think. We recognised we were only ever
going to be one bit of it and now, according to Denis Bradley's
inquiries moving on, that is a hugely positive step to offer closure
for families. We never claimed this was a universal solution,
but what we are saying is at least we are doing something which
we think is quite legitimate and on balance is bringing more success.
I do not know if there is any hard evidence.
Mr Brannigan: From my knowledge
of HET, we have not experienced too many complaints of people
being traumatised by us approaching them, but we have had a number
of cases where people have clearly said that they do not want
anything done. Equally, we have had fragmented families where
some members of the family have said, "We don't want anything",
but other members have come along saying, "Yes, I do want
an investigation". We have no clear evidence that people
are being traumatised by our investigations.
Q502 Chairman: We, of course, will
have to address all of these issues of how the past should be
dealt with and we are meeting with virtually everybody who has
an involvement in this. I would just like to ask you one more
question before I bring in Lady Hermon, and that is this: we were
told when we visited the HET headquarters that it was unlikely
that the project would be completed within the initial planned
six-year period. What are your views on the overrun? How long
is it likely to be? Is it going to be adequately resourced?
Sir Hugh Orde: When we started
it, it was a sort of unique step into the dark, frankly, no-one
had ever tried this, to my knowledge, anywhere in the world. It
is quite interesting, having given evidence in Strasbourg to the
Secretariat raising some specific cases, I fear we are now going
to be in demand in other places looking at their history as a
model of best practice. That is a huge statement around what the
Secretariat thought of what we were doing, and they would have
had a presentation very similar to the one you had. It may overrun,
but much of that is around the families wanting to know more.
Our determination was to be victim-focused, so we feel obliged
to do that. Alistair or John may have some scope on time. It is
a finger in the air, frankly, because we are at 1972-73 at the
minute and as you get closer to the end of the game, does that
make it more complicated or less complicated. There may be more
questions, there may be more completeness in the files, as one
would expect, as we get to the more modern ones. All of that having
been said, what we are delivering is petty cash compared to other
methods, a more legalistic approach to dealing with the past.
Government has given us £32 million or £34 million,
I lose the odd million here or there.
Q503 Chairman: What is that between
friends!
Sir Hugh Orde: At the minute,
essential. I have said on record that I am committed to keeping
this going as long as it needs to keep going because I think it
is adding far more value than it is costing in terms of hard fiscal
cash. The reality, of course, is if there is no more additional
money that, like everything else, will be drawn out of my current
budget. This is different from public inquiries because I am funded
for this separately by Government. I do not know if Alistair has
got a point on that.
Mr Finlay: The other point is
public inquiries is a single victim essentially and we are looking
at 3,265 deaths. The range of victims, if you like, are the families
left behind and if you multiply that by a factor of whatever,
we are dealing with a huge number more. In terms of scoping how
long this is going to take, I do not have a firm figure that I
can give. I think part of this is we have done this process of
gathering papers and such like together, but until you start the
family engagement and know what the questions are and look for
the interconnections you maybe do not know the size of it and
it is not one-size-fits-all. It is very difficult to project at
this stage other than to say I think there are somewhere in the
region of 1,100 cases that are already opened. So of the 3,265—
Q504 Chairman: Roughly a third.
Mr Finlay: Are opened.
Q505 Lady Hermon: May I just follow
on from that point, Alistair. Of the 1,100 cases that have been
opened, one of the reasons you gave for identifying and reinvestigating
every single death, not just unresolved deaths and murders was
that you "could identify interconnected cases". Has
HET identified any interconnected cases?
Mr Finlay: Yes. There are numbers
of series.
Q506 Lady Hermon: Are you able to
say publicly which cases those are?
Mr Brannigan: I am not able to
say with any great detail what they are, but what I can say is
a number of cases are connected. We were able to link those through
intelligence, through weapon history and general circumstances.
Q507 Chairman: These are cases that
you did not previously think were connected?
Mr Brannigan: We did not know
if they were previously connected.
Q508 Lady Hermon: These are early
cases?
Mr Brannigan: These are early
cases that are connected.
Q509 Chairman: These are not cases
that have been taken out of sequence?
Mr Brannigan: No, but in cases
that have been taken out of sequence we see a clear pattern there
and we see them as linked.
Q510 Lady Hermon: Are you hopeful
of prosecutions in those cases?
Mr Brannigan: Every case we have
to treat on its merits and what evidence we have. It is really
a case of digging down into the circumstances and evidence.
Mr Finlay: One of the great advantages
that we have now that we did not have before is the range of techniques.
The role of the crime analyst and the computer tools that are
available to the crime analyst to map out a picture showing the
interconnections is a facility that we have available to us today
that detectives in yesteryear did not have, and maybe did not
have the opportunity through more electronic means and assessing
of information to join the pattern together in a way that we are
able to do now so you can see where, as John says, the linkages
are and make connections between them. It is an evolving map of
interconnected events that tend to emerge from HET.
Q511 Chairman: I was interested in
what you said about the out of sequence cases. Does that mean
that some of those also connect with the very early ones?
Mr Brannigan: Not particularly.
If we look at some of the cases that happened in the 1990s, there
was no relevance to something that happened in the 1970s in terms
of personalities who may have been involved. To give you an example:
in 1972 there were 470 deaths due to the Troubles and of those,
as Alistair said, there was no real analysis done in those early
days to the depth that we do now and we are seeing patterns that
we can connect.
Q512 Lady Hermon: I am sorry to repeat
myself, but is HET hopeful of prosecutions in those linked cases?
Sir Hugh Orde: No is the short
answer. Do I see the HET as prosecuting lots of people? No, I
do not. Does that mean there will be no prosecutions? No, I think
there may be some but the opportunities by definition are limited,
certainly in the 1970s' cases. I think the more modern we become
probably the greater the chances as we come up to the more modern
where exhibits and things are more likely still to exist, but
in the older cases, no. I have been roundly criticised for setting
it up on the grounds that this is nothing to do with the police.
I happen to think that victim care is something to do with the
police and the feedback we are getting to date is that this is
of value. I am not being defensive about it but success for me
is not the number of prosecutions; success for me is we have allowed
some people to move on in their lives to a degree that they would
not have been able to move on if HET had not existed and given
them that interaction and opportunity to ask questions they have
never had before because simply people were too busy at the time.
Q513 Lady Hermon: Can I put just
one other matter. We have looked at the families and we have looked
at the victims, but can I just ask about the impact on police
officers who will be asked by HET to cast their minds back to
the 1970s and 1980s and the trauma that is caused to retired police
officers and their families. What concern does the Police Service
have about them?
Sir Hugh Orde: An awful lot. In
fairness, I think it would be fair to say they are keen to engage.
Mr Brannigan: Yes. We have found
that a lot of ex-police officers are keen to engage and have left
their phone numbers. Some others have said they do not want to
be contacted. We do write out to them as opposed to door stepping
them and we give them the opportunity either to co-operate or
not. Some people do not respond, but by and large we have found
good co-operation from retired officers.
Q514 Lady Hermon: Thank you.
Mr Brannigan: We do respect their
wishes in that if they say "no" we will not harass them
to get that information but we will do it in a courteous way.
Q515 Chairman: Sir Hugh, before you
came we had Sir Alasdair this afternoon and he gave in public
evidence the comment that to date only one case had actually been
referred to him. He did not make any complaint about this, but
he—
Sir Hugh Orde: I bet he did not!
Q516 Chairman: He merely gave it
as a statistic. How many do you reckon he is going to get?
Sir Hugh Orde: I think that is
an impossible question, Chairman. I understand why you are asking
it. In the older cases, not a lot. I am not going to put on Sir
Alasdair's plate stuff which we could not make decisions on. It
is easy to say, "We have got something here, give it to the
DPP", but that is not fair. We have got to be comfortable
that we have got a case that we think in our professional judgment
has some chance of life before we hand it over to the Director
to direct on. I think it would be unfair just to offload everything
on him to say we did not make a decision. John may have a better
view, but I do not think we are looking at huge numbers.
Mr Brannigan: I do not think there
will be overall. Perhaps in the cases towards the end of the process
we will have more that will go towards—
Q517 Mr Murphy: Why then was the
decision made not to start with the latest cases and work the
other way, given that time is moving on and people are retiring?
Surely it would have been much better from an evidence point of
view to investigate the later cases first.
Mr Brannigan: If we look at the
family issues and the cases from 1969-70, the people, relatives
and the victims' families by the time we get to look at their
cases would be much older. It is a big, big issue that we have
and I do not think there was any easy answer as to where to start.
I think within our process the integrity of a lot of documents,
including exhibits, will be more intact than they were for the
1969-70 cases, so they will still be there in the systems that
we have.
Q518 Chairman: But basically your
reason was compassion for the ageing?
Mr Brannigan: It was a judgment
call, yes.
Sir Hugh Orde: It could have gone
either way, frankly. There was a long debate about it.
Q519 Dr McDonnell: We have explored
that quite a bit. Some people have suggested that there is significant
overlap between the Historical Enquiries Team's inquiries and
the Police Ombudsman's inquiries. Do you agree with that? Do you
see them as different animals?
Sir Hugh Orde: They are certainly
very different. The Ombudsman has a very limited remit. The Ombudsman
cannot investigate ordinary, for want of a better description,
murders outwith any suggestion of police malpractice; it is as
simple as that. It may help if Alistair talks on how we operate
jointly.
Mr Finlay: There is a lot of co-operation
and joint working that goes on between the Ombudsman and HET over
those cases where there is joint interest, if you like. I do not
see it as a duplication of effort over the same cases, they are
coming at it from different aspects. There is routine co-ordination
and exchange of views on a regular basis, is that not right, John?
Mr Brannigan: Yes, indeed. We
have monthly meetings with the Ombudsman to discuss cases that
are of mutual interest and we exchange material. The Ombudsman
is legally obliged to investigate some of the cases where the
police have been involved in the shooting, so those cases have
to be passed to them. Other cases where there is some doubt or
where there are allegations of collusion or ineffective investigations
we do discuss in some depth with the Ombudsman. I cannot speak
for the Ombudsman, but certainly they would be strapped for resources
and finance to deal with the volume of cases that we have for
even the minor complaints of maybe an ineffective investigation
in the 1970s.
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