LEAVING WITH CONCERNS FOR THE FUTURE
Leaving with concerns for the future
WHILE compiling the shattering report that exposed how a killer agent was protected by police, Nuala O'Loan could hardly believe what she was seeing.
The Ombudsman says she ordered details checked and rechecked before issuing this year's report on the murder of Raymond McCord Jnr because of the damning revelations.
The report showed that a UVF agent - not named but identified elsewhere as north Belfast loyalist Mark Haddock - and his cohorts were linked to the McCord killing and nine other murders, but were protected by police.
Mrs O'Loan says the way records were routinely destroyed and the PSNI's decision to dump 12% of informers because they were involved in serious crime make her suspect "similar things" happened in other parts of Northern Ireland - and could happen again.
She says she came under enormous pressure from Government while compiling the report known as Operation Ballast - but pressure that she feels was justified because of the need to get the facts right.
"Omagh was bad, but McCord was much worse," she said. "When we did that I was constantly saying to the investigators, 'go and show me again, show me this statement, show me this document' because I had difficulty believing what I was going to have to report and I had to go through every single bit of evidence to satisfy myself before I would use it and I would make the statement that had to be made.
"So I can understand that they were saying to me 'are you very clear about what you're actually saying and doing?'
"On occasion, yeah, it did feel like pressure. But I think when you hold high position and you have huge responsibilities, it's not inappropriate for people to challenge your exercise of the functions and I have no problem with people challenging my exercise of the functions.
"Some of the things that we discovered were unexpected to me and therefore I would expect they were equally unexpected to Ministers and to civil servants who had no responsibility or involvement in the earlier period."
She says that "elements of what happened in Ballast may well have been replicated across the rest of the PSNI".
"Because, for example, they routinely destroyed all the records in relation to one of their TSG (Tasking and Support Group, an intelligence coordination body) operations.
"They conducted an operation, they had papers relating to it, and they routinely destroyed them afterwards. That was Province-wide. We have encountered that in a number of investigations, because it means you can't investigate who made what decision and why.
"I would say that because of the deficiency in management and supervision, and because of the deficiency in policy and practices, there was I think the opportunity for similar things to have happened elsewhere but that's as far as I will go."
Those concerns are part of the reason she leaves office with continuing concerns about the new intelligence arrangements involving MI5.
"I don't want another situation like we had in Northern Ireland with Ballast, with McCord," she said. "Because that didn't happen 20 years ago. That stopped in 2003 because we did the McCord investigation. I think everyone has to be very clear about that because it could happen again."
WHILE compiling the shattering report that exposed how a killer agent was protected by police, Nuala O'Loan could hardly believe what she was seeing.
The Ombudsman says she ordered details checked and rechecked before issuing this year's report on the murder of Raymond McCord Jnr because of the damning revelations.
The report showed that a UVF agent - not named but identified elsewhere as north Belfast loyalist Mark Haddock - and his cohorts were linked to the McCord killing and nine other murders, but were protected by police.
Mrs O'Loan says the way records were routinely destroyed and the PSNI's decision to dump 12% of informers because they were involved in serious crime make her suspect "similar things" happened in other parts of Northern Ireland - and could happen again.
She says she came under enormous pressure from Government while compiling the report known as Operation Ballast - but pressure that she feels was justified because of the need to get the facts right.
"Omagh was bad, but McCord was much worse," she said. "When we did that I was constantly saying to the investigators, 'go and show me again, show me this statement, show me this document' because I had difficulty believing what I was going to have to report and I had to go through every single bit of evidence to satisfy myself before I would use it and I would make the statement that had to be made.
"So I can understand that they were saying to me 'are you very clear about what you're actually saying and doing?'
"On occasion, yeah, it did feel like pressure. But I think when you hold high position and you have huge responsibilities, it's not inappropriate for people to challenge your exercise of the functions and I have no problem with people challenging my exercise of the functions.
"Some of the things that we discovered were unexpected to me and therefore I would expect they were equally unexpected to Ministers and to civil servants who had no responsibility or involvement in the earlier period."
She says that "elements of what happened in Ballast may well have been replicated across the rest of the PSNI".
"Because, for example, they routinely destroyed all the records in relation to one of their TSG (Tasking and Support Group, an intelligence coordination body) operations.
"They conducted an operation, they had papers relating to it, and they routinely destroyed them afterwards. That was Province-wide. We have encountered that in a number of investigations, because it means you can't investigate who made what decision and why.
"I would say that because of the deficiency in management and supervision, and because of the deficiency in policy and practices, there was I think the opportunity for similar things to have happened elsewhere but that's as far as I will go."
Those concerns are part of the reason she leaves office with continuing concerns about the new intelligence arrangements involving MI5.
"I don't want another situation like we had in Northern Ireland with Ballast, with McCord," she said. "Because that didn't happen 20 years ago. That stopped in 2003 because we did the McCord investigation. I think everyone has to be very clear about that because it could happen again."
Further Information
Publisher: BELFAST TELEGRAPH
Ref: BT/1044
Published Date: 05-Nov-07
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