Cops unhappy with ombudsman, figures show Cops unhappy with ombudsman, figures show
February 16, 2011
Kelly said that given the fact that most current Police Service of Northern Ireland members originated in the RUC, they had for decades operated “outside the law and outside any form of effective accountability.”
He added: “These figures are a timely reminder of how necessary it is to get policing right.”
The SDLP’s Alex Attwood agreed in substance with Kelly. “Clearly, the ombudsman’s strong powers and ability to get to the truth have left many police officers unhappy,” he said.
“However, the public — Catholic and Protestant alike — have strong confidence in her office. The bottom line is that the ombudsman, and the Policing Board, are here to stay. Police officers will just have to get used to the real accountability that they face since Patten.”
In another development relating to policing, the Sinn Fein president, Gerry Adams, said that British prime minister has “no intention” of publishing the Cory Report into four controversial killings.
Retired Canadian judge Peter Cory has informed the families of the murder victims that he had recommended public inquiries into each of the killings in which British state collusion is suspected.
London has been criticized for failing to release the reports, especially after the Irish government published reports written by the judge into two controversial killings in the Republic.
Meanwhile, the mother of one of the four victims, murdered solicitor Rosemary Nelson, has got the go-ahead to challenge London’s decision not to publish the Cory Report.
Sheila Magee, from Lurgan, was granted leave to apply for a judicial review in the High Court in Belfast. The family of Pat Finucane has also won a similar right to judicial review.
Meanwhile, more than 100 campaigners protested at the British Conservative Party offices in London about collusion as well as at MI5 headquarters. Victims’ representatives organized the demonstration to coincide with the start of new political talks in Belfast.
“The families are determined that the truth surrounding the murder of our loved ones will not continue to be suppressed by the culture of concealment which operates at the heart of the British government,” group spokesman Mark Sykes said.o
In a related development, the lord mayor of Belfast Martin Morgan welcomed New Jersey lawyer Ed Lynch and New York Supreme Court Judge Patrick Henry to city hall to join relatives of the “New Lodge Six” campaign.
The group is to attend a press conference today to officially launch their petition to the UN in respect of the New Lodge killing of six young men on the weekend of Feb. 3 and 4, 1973.
The men’s families believe they were killed in a pre-planned operation by British soldiers to draw the IRA out onto the streets.
When the IRA failed to put in an appearance, soldiers shot dead the first six people they came across, according to campaigners. The deceased were Tony Campbell, Ambrose Hardy, John Loughran, Brendan Maguire, Jim McCann, and Jim Sloan.
Meanwhile, in the latest unsuccessful bid by the Real IRA, a bomb was planted inside a County Derry British army base. Those responsible broke through fencing and left the explosives strapped to the inside of a garbage bin.
Soldiers discovered the bomb at the base in Ballykelly. It was described as an anti-personnel device similar to the bomb which killed construction worker David Caldwell at a nearby camp in August 2002.
In a loyalist attack, a Catholic man was lucky to escape an attack with his life. The UDA is being blamed for the assault on Liam Hughes who was targeted as he walked home with two friends along the Shore Road on the outskirts of North Belfast.
The father-of-one was set upon in an area frequently targeted by loyalists. Two men jumped out of a car and attempted to repeatedly stab the 24-year-old with a machete.