Clause 5 - Duty of Director of Public Prosecutions to refer certain matters to Police Ombudsman
Justice (Northern Ireland) Bill [Lords]
9:10 am
Mr David Trimble (Upper Bann, UUP)
The hon. Gentleman makes a good point and we will reflect on it later in our proceedings. People leave out of the calculation the fact that their perspective becomes warped in these matters. It is worth everyone recalling that nine out of 10 of the deaths that occurred during what are called the troubles were caused by terrorist organisations, and that two thirds of those were caused by republican terrorists rather than the so-called loyalist terrorists. Since the ceasefires, not a single death has been caused by soldiers or policemen.
Those who constantly make complaints and call for inquiries devote their attention almost entirely to the 10 per cent. and ignore the 90 per cent. That imbalance sends the wrong signals to society and enables those who are guilty of 90 per cent. of the killings to construct a make-believe world in which they invent spurious justification for their actions and try to divert attention from the nine tenths for which they are responsible. I do not know why hon. Members with an honourable record in opposing violence lend themselves to that, but that is another question that we must pursue elsewhere. Those hon. Members who support the campaign to conceal the nine tenths and focus purely on the one tenth are not benefiting themselves, their party or the society that they claim to represent. That is the wider issue behind amendment No. 36.
Amendment No. 35 would delete proposed new subsection (4A)(a)(ii) and omit the reference to behaviour that would ''justify disciplinary hearings''.
That reference is inappropriate and misconceived; matters that are appropriate for disciplinary proceedings should be dealt with through the normal disciplinary channels and should be in the purview of the Chief Constable rather than the police ombudsman.
I shall briefly comment on other amendments in this group, particularly those standing in the name of the hon. Member for South Down (Mr. McGrady). If the Government accepted amendment No. 68, they would create an utterly impossible situation. The amendment would place a duty on the Director of Public Prosecutions to refer any allegation to the ombudsman. Everybody knows that hosts of allegations are made—it is a deliberate tactic of criminals and those associated with terrorist organisations to make as many allegations and complaints as possible to muddy the waters and waste police resources.
I ask the hon. Gentleman, whom I am sure will speak shortly, why he has tabled an amendment that would render the police ombudsman ineffective by putting on her desk a shower—in every sense of the word—of material and require her to investigate every allegation. She does not have the resources; indeed, the resources do not exist. The amendment would cripple the office of the police ombudsman and put an impossible burden on the police and the Director of Public Prosecutions. If ever there was an amendment that would wreck the administration of justice, this is it.