February 16, 2011
By Staff Reporter
Gerry Adams, the Sinn Fein president, kicked off the latest round of heated exchanges by indicting the SDLP for “settling for less than a completely new beginning to policing.”
“Those who carried out the policy of state sanctioned killings are still in place in MI5 and within the Police Service of Northern Ireland Special Branch,” Adams said.
“The SDLP on the Policing Board has failed to challenge the structures, individuals and culture of collusion. The SDLP has refused to demand or advocate the expulsion of human rights abusers from the PSNI.
“Through their inability or unwillingness to act the SDLP has become part of the system which enforces concealment and cover-up. The SDLP by its policing policy is failing all of those who wish to see the British policy of concealment ended and the truth revealed.”
In a furious response, the SDLP leader, Mark Durkan, said he was “astonished that at a time when the SDLP is campaigning to expose the British government on Cory, that Gerry Adams has nothing better to do than to launch an attack on the SDLP.
“The SDLP stands by its record on combating collusion. We worked to ensure that the Policing Board appointed Hugh Orde Chief Constable. He was the day to day head of the Stevens investigation into collusion with loyalists,” Durkan continued.
“We ended the force within a force that was Special Branch. The old leadership of Special Branch has gone. Ronnie Flanagan, Ray White, Jackie Lamont, Bill Lowry, Chris Albiston – all have been replaced by a totally new leadership with no Special Branch background.
“Gerry Adams is plain wrong to suggest that the SDLP has done nothing to get rid of human rights abusers. We ensured that the Police Ombudsman could investigate past human rights abuse and she has 50 cases from the past,” he said.
“If Gerry Adams thinks that there is something better that should be done, he should be on the Policing Board to do it. His own continued denials of IRA membership are believed by nobody. His latest assault on the SDLP carries no weight.”
Meanwhile a row has erupted over remarks made by Sir Hugh Orde during a speech in New York in which he criticized judges in Northern Ireland for giving lenient sentences to those convicted of paramilitary offences.
Orde told the National Committee on American Foreign Policy in New York that the courts in Northern Ireland were softer than those in Britain or the Republic.
Northern Ireland’s highest-ranking judge, Lord Chief Justice Sir Brian Kerr took the unprecedented step of issuing a statement rejecting the suggestion.
Orde had said “I don’t mind how I lock these people up, but what I do care about is that I lock them up. It would be awfully helpful if the judges… could lock them up for slightly longer.”
Orde added that in the Republic, the courts were more hard line. There, they “throw away the key,” he said, explaining someone jailed for carrying a loaded gun could be released within one year in Northern Ireland.
Sir Brian Kerr rejected any suggestion that judges were “lenient in their approach to sentencing. Sentencing is a difficult and challenging exercise that requires careful consideration and experience.”
He added: “Any objective analysis of sentencing trends in Northern Ireland will reveal that it is carried out across the judicial tiers with conspicuous care and skill.”
The SDLP’s Alex Attwood said: “There are good arguments for larger sentences for a range of conditions – car crime, abuse of children, offences against women and paramilitary offences. ‘Throw away the key’ however, is not the best standard for sentencing policy, even though the courts should toughen up.”
Sinn Fein’s Gerry Kelly said that Orde’s comments “miss the core issue. There is of course a leniency shown towards unionist paramilitary figures by the judiciary in the six counties. This fact is indisputable.”