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Belfast Telegraph
26 May 2012
**OF COURSE the bishops under Benedict would adopt this reprehensible guideline. Benedict himself has done nothing for years and years besides sweep clerical abuse under the rug.
The Italian Bishop’s Conference (CIE) has issued guidelines on child protection that inform its bishops that they are ‘not obliged to report illicit facts’ of child abuse to the police.
The new guidelines were released recently after the Congregation for the Doctrine of Faith advised every Bishop Conference to create a document covering Child Protection if they did not already have one.
One of the conferences that was void of such documentation was the CEI which works under Pope Benedict XVI.
In their new five page document which advised Italian Bishops on how to deal with paedophilia they failed to focus on one of the most important and obvious means of combating the crime – informing police authorities.
Instead the document read: “Under Italian law, the bishop, given that he holds no public office nor is he a public servant, is not obliged to report illicit facts of the type covered by this document to the relevant state judicial authorities.”
In response to the documentation US Abuse Victims’ Group Snap told the Irish Times: “Once again the Catholic Church hierarchy has missed the boat . . . These prelates had a chance to do more than the bare minimum and thus set a good example for their colleagues around the world by putting the safety of children first and foremost, but they chose instead to put the reputation of the church first.”
By Lindsay Fergus
Belfast Telegraph
Saturday, 26 May 2012
Education Minister John O’Dowd is facing unionist fury after he accompanied a convicted double police killer to a funeral.
The Sinn Fein minister yesterday collected Martin Corey from Maghaberry prison, where he is being held alongside the killers of Constable Stephen Carroll, to escort him to his brother’s funeral.
Corey was sentenced to life imprisonment in 1973 for the murders of Constables Raymond Wylie and Ronald MacAuley, who were gunned down in an IRA ambush at Aghagallon, near Lurgan. Although released in 1992 his licence was revoked by the Secretary of State in April 2010 after he was deemed a security risk.
Mr O’Dowd was on official business visiting a school in the north west before he was driven in his ministerial car to Maghaberry prison shortly before lunch.
The Education Minister and Corey were then driven in Sinn Fein MLA Raymond McCartney’s car to the funeral mass.
Ulster Unionist justice spokesman Tom Elliott described Mr O’Dowd’s action as “shameful”.
“Their condemnation of so-called dissident republicans as ‘traitors to Ireland’ when they seek to murder or maim police officers rings somewhat hollow when you see two senior Sinn Fein MLAs driving a man who was convicted of killing police officers to a family funeral,” he said.
“This is a shameful episode, especially coming in the very week when there has been so much attention focused on the sentencing of the murderers of Constable Stephen Carroll.”
TUV leader Jim Allister also criticised Mr O’Dowd for accompanying Corey to the funeral saying it showed the “pan republican nexus” between Sinn Fein and dissident republicans.
“When it suits, Sinn Fein denounces dissidents as ‘traitors’ yet campaigns for their prisoners and today provides an official escort,” he said.
However, the Education Minister, defending his decision, said: “This was a humanitarian gesture from the justice minister to a man who had lost his brother.
“I went along as an MLA, I offered reassurance to the justice minister that Martin would adhere to the conditions of his humanitarian parole, Martin did adhere to those conditions and Martin has now returned to jail.”
A Sinn Fein party spokesman went even further stating: “We are very happy that we were able to facilitate and secure Martin’s ability to attend his brother’s funeral. We have nothing to apologise for, and we are not embarrassed.”
The Education Minister had previously impressed unionist politicians with his efforts to build relations and move towards a shared education system.
However, doubts have now been expressed about whether or not he will succeed after being accused of trying to alienate unionists.
DUP chairman of the education committee Mervyn Storey said: “This is an ill-advised decision and inappropriate step by the minister.
“In Northern Ireland we need to be building relationships however this move will only serve to cause division rather than healing.
“This individual was convicted of heinous crimes and quite rightly is in prison serving his full term. Many parents will understandably be horrified by Mr O’Dowd’s actions.”
Those sentiments were echoed by UUP MLA Basil McCrea who accused Mr O’Dowd of living in “la la land”.
Alliance education spokesman, Trevor Lunn, added: “In his role as a Government Minister he has responsibilities on his shoulders. This may have been unwise and it shows poor judgment.”
Story so far
Martin Joseph Corey was 23 when he was convicted of the murders of Constables Raymond Wylie (25) and Ronald MacAuley (44). The officers were ambushed by the IRA at Aghagallon near Lurgan on February 27, 1973. They were both posthumously awarded the Queen’s Police Medal for gallantry. Corey was one of 320 former IRA and INLA prisoners who in 2007 called for prisoners to vote against Sinn Fein. They referred to themselves as Irish republican ex-prisoners of war against the RUC/PSNI and M15.
News Letter
26 May 2012
QUESTIONS have been raised about the independence of so-called “independent” members of the bodies that oversee the PSNI after the appointment of a serving Sinn Fein councillor as a non-political representative.
Last week the membership of the new Policing and Community and Safety Partnerships (PCSPs) – which have just replaced District Policing Partnerships – was announced.
The bodies, which are supposed to hold the PSNI to account in each of the 26 council areas, are made up of both political members – appointed by the local council – and independent members who apply to the Policing Board which selects and appoints them.
But one of the 232 “independent” members of the PCSPs announced last week is Banbridge Sinn Fein councillor Paul Gribben.
Lagan Valley DUP MLA Brenda Hale said that the Policing Board’s decision to appoint the councillor as an independent member was “astounding”.
Ms Hale said: “Serious questions need to be asked as to how this situation was been allowed to happen.
“How can an applicant, who serves as a local political elected representative, also be considered for one of the ‘independent’ positions?
“It is deeply disappointing that those community leaders and community activists who are real independents were being displaced by those who were seeking to gain extra political positions.”
Local Dromore DUP councillor and Banbridge PCSP member Paul Rankin said: “If a sitting councillor can apply as an independent and be accepted, then what is there to prevent all of the independent positions being filled by elected representatives?
“When is an independent truly an independent?”
Although he is the most obviously political “independent” member of a PCSP, Mr Gribben is not the only independent with strong links to a political party.
The Policing Board said that about 40 per cent of “independent” members had declared some political involvement.
And in a statement the board defended allowing political representatives to be appointed as non-political members.
It said: “The Policing Board recently appointed 232 independent members to Policing and Community Safety Partnerships across Northern Ireland following the recent recruitment exercise.
“The board can confirm that a number of sitting councillors applied for positions as independent members of PCSPs.
“The Justice Act does not currently prevent sitting councillors from applying as an independent member of a PCSP and one councillor has been appointed to Banbridge PCSP.”
District Policing Partnerships (DPPs) were introduced as part of the Patten reforms of policing in an attempt to connect police to their communities and allow ordinary members of the public to hold local police commanders to account.
But, despite costing millions in fees for members — who were each paid more than £2,000 a year — and administrative costs, most DPP meetings were poorly attended.
Often there were fewer members of the public present than politicians and police.
The PCSPs replace both DPPs and Community Safety Partnerships.
However, unlike the existing bodies there will be attendance-related payments to members of the new bodies who will be paid £60 per meeting to a maximum of 20 meetings per year.
sam.mcbride@newsletter.co.uk
MARIE O’HALLORAN and GERRY MORIARTY in Killarney
Irish Times
26 May 2012
**Video onsite
Northern Ireland deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness has offered to hold talks with dissident republicans. He insisted, however, the process of building a new future “will continue with or without” them.
In the first keynote address this morning at the the Sinn Féin ard fheis he said he was offering dissidents an “opportunity to meet and talk, come and tell us what you hope to gain by deluding yourselves and the gullible, that your actions will succeed in what is certainly a pathetic and futile attempt to turn back the clock”.
Referring to Unionist concerns he said those who thought a united Ireland could be built without unionist participation and leadership were “deluded”.
And he pledged the party’s commitment to push for voting rights to be extended to those in the North and emigrants. “Talk during elections is one thing. Now is the time for action,” said the former Presidential election candidate.
A former senior IRA member, Mr McGuinness told about 400 delegates at the morning session: “I was part of the conflict. I was there during the difficult and tragic times we had in the past and let me tell you there is nothing romantic about the war.”
“It was hard, it was painful and it was traumatic and I never ever want the children of Ireland who live today in peace to be subjected to the conflict, pain and hurt that we lived through.”
He added that “if anyone can claim to understand the mindset of those opposed to peaceful Irish republicanism I think I can”.
The Mid-Ulster MP and MLA said there were those who claimed to be republican and to “still be fighting for Ireland, these people claim they love our country but clearly they don’t love our people as the murder of Ronan Kerr, a young GAA loving police officer in April last year showed”.
“Those involved in these violent acts don’t believe for one minute that they further the cause of Irish reunification. What’s more they also know the agreements we have negotiated are solid and secure.
He had met Mr Kerr’s mother Nuala Kerr and Kate Carroll, whose husband PSNI officer Steven Carroll was killed in Craigavon and they were genuine supporters of peace and change.
“My message to those who remain committed to violence is that it is not much of an achievement to think that the only thing you have shown the capability to break are two fine women’s hearts.”
Delegates at the ardfheis also debated the economy, health, education and the household charge. Laois-Offaly TD Brian Stanley said next month Sinn Féin will introduce the Local Government Household Charge Repeal bill seeking to force the Government to get rid of the €100 household charge.
He said half of all householders had not paid the charge and he urged unions, community groups, councillors and TDs, particularly Labour members, to rally behind the attempt to consign the charge “to the rubbish bin of history”.
The party’s health spokesman Caoimhghín Ó Caoláin criticised the U-turn by Minister for Health Dr James Reilly from Opposition to Government. “For years James Reilly was like a hawk swooping on Mary Harney and today he is but a parrot repeating her words”.
Donegal North East TD Padraig MacLochlainn told the ardfheis that “while there are no quick fixes or easy answers to our economic crisis there are choices. Unfortunately the Government is making all the wrong ones.”
He said Sinn Féin had a roadmap to get to a prosperous and equal Ireland. “We have produced a detailed, costed and credible plan.”
Sinn Féin Youth delegate Diane Nolan said unemployment was 14.7 per cent in the Republic in February. Under 25 unemployment was more than double that figure at 31.6 per cent. “And in the North youth unemployment is at a 15 year high,” she said.
MP and MLA Conor Murphy said the Northern Ireland Assembly’s lack of fiscal powers limited Sinn Féin’s ability to tackle the economic crisis. “Without the necessary tools we cannot design the policies to assist economic recovery on the island and are simply reduced to redistributing an ever decreasing block grant from London.”
Senator Kathryn Reilly surprised delegates when she took off two GAA club jerseys, one after the other, leaving on a London GAA club jersey. She said it was to highlight how clubs had been ravaged by emigration. Ms Reilly pointed out that the only thriving GAA clubs were those abroad.
Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams will address the ardfheis at 5.25 pm.
Sinn Féin MP attacks Real IRA, Continuity IRA and other opponents of power-sharing as ‘pathetic’ and ‘deluded’
Henry McDonald
Guardian
26 May 2012
The deputy first minister of Northern Ireland, Martin McGuinness, has accused the Real IRA, Continuity IRA and other dissident republicans of being the enemies of Ireland and opponents of progress.
The Sinn Féin MP described those republicans opposed to power sharing in the north of Ireland as “pathetic”.
Referrring to the widow of the murdered police officer Stephen Carroll and the mother of Constable Ronan Kerr, who was killed last year by a booby-trap car bomb, the former IRA chief of staff said all the dissident republicans could do was “break these two fine women’s hearts”.
Speaking at the Sinn Féin annual conference in Kerry on Saturday, McGuinness said: “People who think that a new Ireland can be built without unionist participation, involvement & leadership are deluded.”
He said the process of building a new future on Ireland would move on with or without the republican dissidents.
McGuinness told the conference that he didn’t “want the children of Ireland to live through the pain, conflict and hurt that we lived through”.
He said it was time for all republicans to recognise that there were in the north one million people who considered themselves to be British.
The former head of the IRA in the Troubles also offered to meet with republican dissidents with the aim of dissuading them from their armed campaign.
“The war is over,” he told delegates at the conference, adding that there was “nothing romantic” about it.
The Real IRA and Continuity IRA have repeatedly said they have nothing to discuss with Sinn Féin leaders in relation to their ongoing campaign of violence.
By John Mulgrew
Belfast Telegraph
Saturday, 26 May 2012
Lennox
Dog lovers around the world are waiting for Northern Ireland’s highest court to decide if the life of a dog should be saved.
The Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan and two other High Court judges yesterday heard an appeal case against an earlier court verdict that pitbull-type dog Lennox should be destroyed.
Legal costs in the long-running case are expected to run to tens of thousands of pounds.
Since proceedings began more than 127,000 people worldwide have signed a petition calling for Lennox to be returned to his owners, who have not been given enough chance to show he can be made safe, the court was told.
In the Court of Appeal, lawyers for Belfast woman Caroline Barnes argued that her pet dog has never bitten anyone and has behaved impeccably since being impounded.
Lennox has been held by Belfast City Council at a secret location for two years after being seized from the family home. The case yesterday was brought in front of Northern Ireland’s most senior judges — including the Lord Chief Justice Declan Morgan — in a last ditch attempt to save Lennox the dog’s life.
Two lower courts have already ruled that the seven-year-old dog should be destroyed because it poses a danger to the public.
In September it looked set to be put down when a county court judge decided there was too great a risk. That decision came after the Dangerous Dogs (Amendment) Act 1997 in England and Wales was extended to Northern Ireland.
In a final challenge, lawyers for Lennox’s owner claimed the judge misdirected himself.
Michael Lavery QC — who is representing Caroline Barnes — said Lennox was not given a chance to “prove his worth”.
He told the court that no credit was given for the dog behaving well since being taken into the care of Belfast City Council.
“It comes to this: is it automatic that if a dog is either dangerous per se, or shows some allegedly dangerous characteristics, falling well short of biting, can he never be allowed to prove his worth?” he added. “He (the County Court judge) didn’t give sufficient weight to the question of whether the dog could be made safe or not.”
Mr Lavery also cited one case in which a dog had avoided the death sentence despite having bitten people before.
But according to David Scoffield QC — representing Belfast City Council — all possibilities in the case of Lennox were examined before the decision was taken.
“What else should the judge have considered which he did not consider?” he asked the court.
“He has looked at the issue of muzzling, he has looked at the issue of keeping the dog confined, he has looked at the issue of keeping it on a lead. This challenge is really a challenge to the judge’s conclusion that the imposition of conditions was not sufficient to satisfy him the dog was not a danger.”
Lord Chief Justice Declan Morgan said he and Lord Justices Higgins and Girvan would give their decision in the next week.
__________
An astonishing journey ends in Royal Courts of Justice
It was a very strange day in the grand surroundings of the Royal Courts of Justice in Belfast. Barristers, QCs and Northern Ireland’s most senior judges filling the court, to discuss whether the life of a family pet should be saved.
In the Court of Appeal the fate of seven-year-old Lennox the dog was being decided; the same court which only minutes earlier had heard a murder appeal from Brian Shivers, convicted of killing two young sappers outside Massereene Army Barracks in Antrim three years ago.
Normally reserved for cases involving serious crime, yesterday it was the plight of the dog from Belfast and his owner Caroline Barnes, and the now global support campaign finally reaching what could be the end of the line.
Now, dog lovers across the globe are patiently waiting to hear the outcome of the case — which has garnered an ever increasing number of loyal supporters — and whether the appeal over Lennox’s death sentence will be successful.
After two years and the decisions from two lower courts – the future of the pitbull-type dog finally reached the Court of Appeal.
Walking into the long marble corridor of the Royal Courts of Justice — an icon of Northern Ireland’s judicial system bustling with sharp-suited lawyers and their clients — it seemed such an unlikely place for a hearing about a family pet.
Walking into the court, comprised of the typical television courtroom drama look of aged wood and leather benches — the surroundings seemed completely in contrast with the case being brought before the panel of judges.
On first appearances, given the large number of lawyers, you could have been mistaken the court was dealing with a murder appeal.
But it was all for Lennox.
Moments earlier the same judge — Lord Chief Justice Declan Morgan — had dealt with one of the region’s biggest terror cases in recent years.
During the brief proceedings in the hot and musty confines of the court — the panel of senior judges heard evidence on behalf of both Lennox’s owner and Belfast City Council to determine the dog’s fate.
With the sun shining through the tall room’s glass ceiling, you could hear a pin drop before the start of proceedings.
In court, Caroline Barnes — accompanied by her mother — appeared visibly moved while discussions about the fate of her dog were brought before the court — terrified of possibly losing her beloved pet forever.
Outside the court, Ms Barnes said she was still hopeful that her dog would be spared the death sentence.
And the focus continued on Lennox outside the court yesterday with photographers snapping the family and onlookers enjoying the sun gazing on — turning more attention to the life of a pitbulltype dog than a convicted murderer.
Grabbing the interest of animal lovers the world over, more than 127,000 people have now signed a petition calling for the Lennox to be set free.
And those tens of thousands are now waiting with baited breath for the outcome of a case which has stirred up a raft of emotion among dog lovers globally.
Yesterday, the number of his supporters continued to rise as more and more signed the online petition.
Worldwide interest has grown to the extent of a campaign song, penned about the dog’s plight — with his tens of thousand of supporters waiting patiently for a final decision.
The slick Save Lennox website has also been keeping the myriad of supporters updated on the progression of the case so far, along with some 50,000 fans on Facebook.
In the next few days a decision from the court is expected on whether Lennox’s appeal will be successful and whether the lengthy two-year campaign to set the dog free has been worth it.
It’s a case which has surprised many — few expecting a decision to destroy a family pet to go as far as Northern Ireland’s appeal court.
__________
Complex and costly battle over family pet
By Amanda Poole
The story of death-row-dog Lennox began back in May 2010.
Caroline Barnes’ pet dog, deemed to be a banned pitbull-type, was seized by Belfast City Council dog wardens and he has remained in their care at a secret location ever since.
Ms Barnes immediately launched in to action and her ‘Save Lennox’ campaign has attracted considerable attention from people across the world.
So far, more than 127,000 individuals have put their signatures to an online petition for the attention of the First Minister and deputy First Minister, demanding seven-year-old Lennox’s release.
And the Save Lennox Twitter account has some 7,000 followers and over 50,000 people have liked its Facebook page.
Last autumn, Judge Derek Rodgers at Belfast County Court said it was the “duty of the court to put public safety above anything else” and dismissed Ms Barnes appeal to spare the dog’s life.
He upheld the original decision that Lennox posed a danger to the public and must be destroyed, but Ms Barnes has continued her fight.
A decision from the Court of Appeal is expected in the next couple of weeks and until then the dog will be kennelled and cared for by the council.
The full cost of the marathon legal battle between Ms Barnes and Belfast City Council will not be known until the court case has concluded, however, it is expected to be in excess of £20,000.
While most of the dog’s supporters are well intentioned animal lovers, some of his fans have overstepped the mark.
The Lennox saga took a sinister turn, when council staff and others experienced intimidation from members of the public.
A council document explains “abuse, harassment and intimidation” was directed towards its staff, including online harassment and physical attacks.
Belfast City Council is reviewing procedures to protect staff from abuse and the Attorney General is investigating the incidents.
ROWAN GALLAGHER
Irish Times
26 May 2012
Call-outs for Army bomb disposal teams last year were the highest in more than 30 years, new figures show.
The Army was called out 237 times last year to deal with suspected explosive devices, the largest number since 1979.
A large increase in callouts came during visits by Queen Elizabeth and US president Barack Obama. Fifty-eight of the devices discovered were deemed to be viable explosives.
The devices found include improvised mortars, often large devices capable of firing an explosive gas cylinder known as “barrack busters”, while rocket propelled grenades (RPGs) and pipe bombs were also discovered by the specialised unit.
So far this year the Army has been called out 91 times and has dealt with some 32 viable explosive devices.
A total of 31 of the call-outs in 2012 were deemed hoaxes or false alarms.
“Last year was the highest number of call-outs since 1979. The number of viable improvised explosive devices (IEDs) in 2010 was 49 but this belies the spectrum of devices including improvised mortars, explosive components, RPGs and other IEDs dealt with by the teams that year,” the spokesman said.
By Nic Robertson and Ken Shiffman
CNN
25 May 2012
**Videos onsite
Brendan Hughes
Editor’s note: Watch how Northern Ireland’s dark past could threaten the peace process as victims look for closure from tapes made by former combatants on both sides of the sectarian divide. “World’s Untold Story” on CNN International at 9 a.m. and 9 p.m. ET on Saturday May 26, or Sunday at 6 a.m. ET.
Belfast, Northern Ireland (CNN) — Audio recordings locked inside a college library in the United States might help solve a decades-old murder mystery, but the release of those tapes could damage the fragile peace in Northern Ireland.
In December 1972, the widow Jean McConville was taken from her home in Belfast and her 10 children.
“They came about tea time and they dragged her out of the bathroom and dragged her out,” remembers McConville’s daughter, Helen McKendry, who was then a teenager.
Ever since, McKendry has been on a 40-year quest for answers.
“All I ever wanted was to know the reason why they killed my mother,” McKendry explained.
“I’ve lived all my life in fear,” McKendry added. “They destroyed my mother’s life, my family life.”
McKendry believes tapes locked away in Boston College’s library may hold the truth about her mother’s fate. But there are fears that the tapes may also cause embarrassment or worse for Gerry Adams, the prominent Catholic politician who helped broker peace in Northern Ireland.
The recordings were made as part of the Belfast Project, which is a collection of interviews conducted with former Northern Irish paramilitary fighters. They provide an oral history of the decades of sectarian fighting that became known as The Troubles.
Northern Ireland is part of Britain and Protestant fighters wanted to keep it that way. Catholics were fighting to force the British out and reunify the north with the rest of Ireland.
The former combatants believed that their recorded interviews would be kept secret until their death. But that may no longer be possible as Northern Irish police are asking the United States government to hand over some of the tapes.
The police say they were alerted to the secret archive by the book, “Voices from the Grave,” written by Belfast Project archive manager Ed Moloney, which is based on transcripts from two of the recorded interviews. One of those featured is Brendan Hughes, a now-deceased former commander of the Irish Republican Army or IRA, a Catholic paramilitary.
Hughes told his interviewer: “I have never, ever, ever admitted being a member of the IRA, ever. I’ve just done it here.”
And he talked about Jean McConville’s murder, stating: “I knew she was being executed. I knew that. I didn’t know she was going to be buried or disappeared as they call them now.”
Hughes went on to allege Gerry Adams was involved: “The special squad was brought into the operation then, called The Unknowns. You know when anyone needed to be taken away they normally done it. I had no control over this squad. Gerry had control over this particular squad.”
Hughes added he regretted what happened: “Looking back on it now, what happened to the woman was wrong.”
Hughes said in his taped interview, McConville was killed because the IRA believed she was working with the British army. The McKendrys do not believe she was a spy, saying she was too busy looking after her 10 children to be an informer.
Gerry Adams, leader of Northern Ireland’s Sinn Fein party, refused to be interviewed by CNN for this story. But, he has said many times before that he was never in the IRA and never involved in the death of Jean McConville, and has labeled as libelous any allegation he was involved in the McConville murder. His spokesman goes further, labeling Adams’ critics as anti the peace process.
Adams’ denial of IRA membership angers his old comrades like Hughes. “It means that people like myself had to carry the responsibility of all those deaths,” Hughes said on the interview tape. “Gerry was a major, major player in the war and yet he’s standing there denying it.”
The Northern Irish police vow to “follow the material in the Boston Archives all way to court if that’s where it takes them … they say detectives have a legal responsibility to investigate murders … and follow all lines of inquiry.”
The British government’s most senior politician on Northern Ireland, Owen Paterson told CNN that no one person is above the law.
“There can be no concept on amnesty, so we have to support the police to have complete operational independence in pursuing every line of inquiry in bringing those who committed crimes to justice,” Paterson said.
Right now the Boston archive manager, Ed Moloney, is furious with Boston College for initially giving in too quickly to subpoena’s demanding they hand over some of the tapes to a U.S. judge. He says it puts lives in danger, damages the future of truth recovery, oral histories and academic research.
Moloney — who is appealing to try to stop the court from handing the tapes it has to police — wants the tapes handed back to the people who told their stories.
“Boston College is no longer a fit and proper place to keep these interviews,” Moloney insists. “The archives should be closed down, and the interviews should be returned to the people who gave them because they’re not safe.”
But there seems to be little chance of that, Boston College’s spokesman Jack Dunn blames Moloney.
“From the beginning, we said to the project organizer, who approached us with this idea, that there were limitations regarding the assurances of confidentiality under American law,” Dunn said.
But what worries Moloney is that if the police get tapes relating to Jean McConville’s murder, they could quickly find other crimes to investigate implicating more political leaders and the police could soon demand all the tapes in the archive.
Few believe the police will get Adams to court in part because he is inoculated from prosecution by his central role silencing IRA guns and delivering peace, and in part because the tapes alone cannot secure a conviction.
Former IRA man Richard O’Rawe recorded a statement for the Boston College archives and says lawyers told him under UK law the tapes cannot be used in court.
“I find it just imponderable, why the police are going down this road when they must know that there is no chance of obtaining any convictions at the end of this,” O’Rawe says.
Like many other Catholics, O’Rawe thinks the police are biased against them, trying to settle old scores and bring Adams and others down. But for Helen McKendry, herself a Catholic getting access to the tapes is about so much more.
For her, it’s not only about justice but a release from the pain of never knowing the truth.
“They tried to destroy what life I have now,” she says. “They are the people who committed the crimes in this. They should be worried.”
By Liam Clarke
Belfast Telegraph
25 May 2012
The Alliance Party has walked away from a crucial Stormont committee on combating sectarianism and building a shared future together, the Belfast Telegraph can reveal.
The five-party working group was set up after a plan produced by Sinn Fein and the DUP was rejected in a public consultation process which ended in September 2010.
The committee, which was set up last year to agree a Cohesion, Sharing and Integration (CSI) strategy, has met in secret, but has so far failed in its task to produce a way forward.
“We have now lost our faith in the integrity of this process,” Alliance leader David Ford said.
He accused the Office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister (OFMDFM), headed by Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness, of “bad faith”, and called for the private meetings between the five parties to be replaced by open public debate.
“The current process has become an attempt at creating an illusion that the DUP and Sinn Fein are serious about agreeing a strategy that will actually promote a shared society,” he said.
His comments follow interviews with Mr Robinson and Mr McGuinness in the Belfast Telegraph on May 12 to mark the current Executive’s first year in office.
Both men said that they had found it impossible to agree a CSI strategy in the committee.
They said that they intended publishing a compromise paper which “would find maximum acceptability within the community” some time next month.
Mr McGuinness blamed Alliance for the delay. “I do think the Alliance party’s attendance leaves a lot to be desired, although they are the ones who have been pushing this publicly,” he said.
Later Mr Robinson also blamed Alliance by name in Stormont.
Yesterday, Mr Ford responded by writing to Mr Robinson and Mr McGuinness to warn that “the paper that is emerging from the process falls far short” of what is needed. He pledged that if they did publish a paper “Alliance will of course participate constructively in Executive and Assembly discussions on any such strategy”.
The CSI committee meets every Tuesday and its proceedings are not made public. According to Alliance records, their representative, Chris Lyttle, has attended all but one of the meetings when he was absent on paternity leave.
On that occasion, in January, he was replaced by Richard Good, Mr Ford’s special adviser.
Last week, DUP Junior Minister Jonathan Bell criticised Alliance’s record and accused Mr Lyttle of being absent for much of January.
Alliance has asked OFMDFM to provide attendance records, but has received no reply. They say they asked on May 14 and that, under the rules, a reply should have been made by May 17.
At Tuesday’s meeting Alliance brought things to a head by presenting a list of eight essential items which they believe should be on any document to promote a shared society. It includes a review of segregated housing, a framework for dealing with illegal flags and emblems and a test of all public spending to ensure it prioritises sharing over separation.
“The responses we received made clear that the other parties aren’t prepared to commit to the actions the Executive needs to take to build a genuinely shared future,” Mr Ford stated.
He wrote in his letter: “The current approach within the group, of seeking to agree a strategy that everyone can sign up to on the basis that it makes little change to the status quo, is not one that we will participate in any longer.”
An Alliance spokesman added: “We were mainly concerned about policy, but the comments by the deputy First Minister and subsequent comments by the First Minister and Jonathan Bell have made the situation more difficult.”
This shot across the bows is a wake-up call
If Alliance ever withdraws from the Executive, as it has threatened in the past, this will be seen as the moment the rot started and the party of accommodation showed its tough side.
The DUP and Sinn Fein needed Alliance to help them with the devolution of policing and justice because no other party could command cross-community support to take on such a contentious job.
Then Alliance built its vote and got a second ministry under d’Hondt, Education and Learning (DEL).
DEL is being abolished later this year, but that is unlikely to provoke a walkout. Threatening Cohesion Sharing and Integration, Alliance’s signature policy and its main raison d’etre as an organisation, and then blaming it for the problem undermines its self respect.
Pulling out of the CSI committee is a first shot across the bows of the bigger parties and the first time in years Alliance has used its elbows like this.
For all our sakes a comprehensive CSI strategy needs to be agreed. Division along sectarian lines is the poison which has brought our society into conflict in the past. It could do so again if it is not tackled in a systematic way.
Sectarianism makes all our other problems worse and communal division is that much harder to tackle because our political system is built on it.
Peter Robinson and Martin McGuinness both say their parties are reaching out to the other community. Indeed they have personally given a lead by attending sporting events, religious services and other functions. This helps but it is not a comprehensive strategy to tackle problems on the ground where rioting and violence are a danger. It is good to talk of a shared future and an integrated education system, like Mr Robinson and Mr McGuinness, but it is not enough in itself. We need a road map which will bring us to these objectives in a reasonable time frame.
Each year’s delay is a year in which society can be torn apart by loyalist or dissident violence — and is a year in which our pitch for investment and tourism can be marred by a mishandled marching season.
Alliance’s withdrawal from the committee must provide a wake-up call, not provoke a crisis. It is up to our politicians to work this out and find a way forward.
They were elected to pull together productively and they must do so.
By Liam Clarke
Belfast Telegraph
25 May 2012
Reality TV: Gerry Adams’ speech to Sinn Fein’s ard fheis will be carefully stage-managed
Sinn Fein’s ard fheis opens in Killarney tomorrow. Like most conferences held by successful political parties, it is a well-managed set-piece. It is a PR event and it is aimed at the voters watching on TV.
The party faithful in the hall are a backdrop – there to radiate support and unanimity, not wrangle over policy like revolutionaries.
The most important episode and the focus of the whole conference will be Gerry Adams’ leader’s address, which goes out live on both RTE and BBC Northern Ireland at 5.25pm on Saturday.
It must be honed and crafted to suit the broadcasters.
Sinn Fein plays for high stakes and can’t afford to over-run, as Alasdair McDonnell did at the SDLP gathering.
Opinion polls say Sinn Fein is the second most popular party in the Republic after Fine Gael, and the Assembly elections made it second only to the DUP in Northern Ireland. That makes the goal of being simultaneously in government north and south potentially achievable.
If that happened, Sinn Fein could claim that Irish unity, or at least a significant staging-post, had been achieved, as Sinn Fein ministers operated all-Ireland bodies from both sides of the border.
Ideally, from Sinn Fein’s point-of-view, this would happen in 2016 – the anniversary of the Easter Rising.
Adams has a lot to juggle. The north-south equation isn’t easy to balance.
In government in the north, the party swallowed hard and voted to cut expenditure by £3bn over four years.
The imperative here is to maintain stable government in partnership with the DUP.
That – and the £10bn-a-year subsidy we receive from Britain – makes it difficult to do more than issue Press statements about austerities handed down from Westminster.
In the Republic, Sinn Fein advocates defaulting on EU loans and vocally opposes coalition cuts. There its main priority is to gain ground and undermine the coalition for cutting too hard.
The Irish Labour Party generally builds support in opposition and sees it seep away when it enters coalition with a more Right-wing party.
This time is no exception – the latest poll shows Labour has lost 25% of its support to Sinn Fein and independents compared to last year’s election and Sinn Fein has edged ahead of it in overall popularity.
Sinn Fein needs to continue to focus on Labour’s inability to deliver its pre-election promises in coalition, while it distracts attention from the fact it too is implementing cuts as part of a coalition in the north. The north is having a ‘feedback’ effect on southern strategy. Sinn Fein has seen how the DUP extended its appeal into middle-class voters by stressing its business credentials alongside more traditional rallying-calls.
Last week, Pearse Doherty, a Donegal TD and someone to watch when Gerry Adams steps down, gave a hint of things to come when he said: “We need entrepreneurs and business leaders to be adventurous and to be successful.”
In the battle for new and marginal votes, Sinn Fein must measure its policies by viewer sentiment, not dogma.
That democratic discipline will change it out of all recognition.
Irish Times
25 May 2012
A TERMINALLY ill man jailed for the killing of two soldiers at a military base in Antrim was wrongly convicted of murder, the Court of Appeal in Belfast heard yesterday.
Lawyers for Brian Shivers claimed it was legally impossible for him to have been found guilty on the facts as a secondary party.
Shivers is seeking to overturn a verdict that he played a role in the murder of Sappers Mark Quinsey (23) and Patrick Azimkar (21).
The victims were gunned down by the Real IRA as they collected pizza at the gates of Massereene Barracks in March 2009. The shootings were carried out hours before the soldiers were due to be deployed to Afghanistan.
Earlier this year Shivers (46), from Magherafelt, Co Derry, was ordered to serve a minimum 25 years in prison for his part in the killings.
He was also found guilty of six counts of attempted murder and one of possession of two firearms with intent to endanger life.
His co-accused, Colin Duffy, a 44-year-old republican from Lurgan, Co Armagh, was acquitted of all charges, including the two murders.
It emerged during the trial that Shivers suffers from cystic fibrosis and has only a few years to live.
He was found guilty on the strength of a DNA link to matches found in the partially burned-out getaway car used in the gun attack. Shivers was also found to have lied about his whereabouts and actions on the night of the murders.
The judge who convicted him accepted he played a lesser role than the gunmen, but drew attention to his alleged attempt to destroy the Vauxhall Cavalier.
Yesterday Patrick O’Connor QC, for Shivers, said the guilty verdict was unsafe. He argued there was no actus reus – criminal act – prior to the murders which is legally required in law.
“The findings of fact by the learned trial judge provide no basis at all for these convictions,” Mr O’Connor contended.
“These findings were confined to conduct by Mr Shivers after the attack. There was no finding that Mr Shivers, by inference, had been party to a joint enterprise to carry out the attack.”
Heavily bearded and dressed in a short-sleeved shirt, Shivers was brought into court in handcuffs for the appeal hearing.
His barrister acknowledged the terrible consequences of the shootings. “These were appalling offences which caused immense loss and suffering to the victims and families,” Mr O’Connor said.
“Nothing we say can, nor is intended to, detract from that.” However he insisted that to convict his client of the murders as a secondary party the trial judge had to find proven an act of complicity in the crime.
“The actus reus must be an act of aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring,” he said. “There is a fundamental problem here: the prosecution never suggested a single act which could amount to aiding, abetting, counselling or procuring.”
Terence Mooney QC, for the Crown, rejected the case.
He told the court the gunmen could only be confident enough to carry out the attack if they knew beforehand that the car was going to be destroyed at a rendezvous point.
“Having said ‘Yes, I will be there’, that is an act, although it is a spoken act, it is an act as much as any other in the sequence that allowed the gunmen to escape,” Mr Mooney said.
“The assistance is that they have confidence to carry out their role, ie they are the killers, and to escape knowing that they have an escape avenue.”
Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan, sitting with Lord Justices Higgins and Girvan, reserved judgment in the appeal.
Sir Declan said: “There are some delicate matters here that we want to look at very carefully.”
Irish Times
25 May 2012
Lennox, whose fate depends on a court decision in Northern Ireland
A pitbull terrier on death row had not been given enough chance to show it could be made safe, the Court of Appeal in Belfast was told yesterday.
Lawyers for Belfast woman Caroline Barnes argued that her pet, Lennox, had never bitten anyone and had behaved impeccably since being impounded.
Ms Barnes has taken her case before Northern Ireland’s most senior judges in a final bid to spare the animal’s life.
Two lower courts have ruled that the seven-year-old dog should be destroyed because he poses a danger to the public.
Lennox was seized by Belfast City Council dog wardens in May 2010. A campaign has been waged since to save him, including huge support on an online petition.
The dog looked set to be put down last September when a County Court judge decided there was too great a risk. That decision came after the Dangerous Dogs (Amendment) Act 1997 in England and Wales was extended to the North.
The new legislation has introduced a discretionary element to automatic destruction for pitbull-types, based on whether the animal is deemed a danger to the public.
Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan said judgment would be given shortly.
Derry Journal
24 May 2012
A 30-year-old man from Derry’s Bogside has appeared in court accused of possessing bomb devices found in a flat in the city earlier this week.
Anthony Thomas Friel is further charged with possessing articles which could be used in an act of terrorism.
The charges relate to the police search of a flat in Maureen Avenue on May 21.
Friel is accused of possessing three improvised explosive devices, three timer power units, timers and batteries.
The 30-year-old is also accused of having tools, sealed worksuits and duct tape.
During a brief hearing at Derry Magistrate’s Court this morning, Friel spoke only to confirm his details and that he understood the charges.
A PSNI investigating officer told the court he believed he could connect the defendant to the charges.
Defence solicitor Kevin Casey said his client would not be applying for bail at this time.
He said there were “outstanding matters” he wished to discuss with the investigating officer and PPS before making such an application.
Friel was remanded in custody and will appear in court again via videolink on June 7.
TIM O’BRIEN
Irish Times
24 May 2012
Intelligence that a detective sergeant in Dundalk was in collusion with the IRA was considered so unreliable that it was never passed to An Garda Síochána, the Smithwick Tribunal was told yesterday.
Senior counsel Michael Durack for the Garda Commissioner said an RUC intelligence report, known as an “SB50” was categorised as little more than “hearsay” and “gossip” by senior RUC officers.
Mr Durack was cross-examining one of the SB50’s two authors, a former detective constable in the RUC special branch regional taskforce based in Newry.
The former detective gave evidence by video link from a location in Belfast, sitting with his back to the camera. He was referred to only as Witness Q.
Witness Q told the tribunal that he, along with a fellow detective who gave evidence to the tribunal last week, had been told by a usually reliable source that Owen Corrigan of the Garda in Dundalk was keeping the IRA supplied with information.
He said the intelligence report had been drawn up in June 1985. In February that year the IRA had launched a mortar attack on Newry RUC station killing nine RUC officers. In May he said a further four colleagues were killed by a landmine on the Border at Killeen.
He said there was concern about the level of information available to the IRA. This was particularly true in relation to Killeen, as the IRA appeared to know exactly where the van, which had been escorted to the Border by gardaí, would be travelling.
By Brendan McDaid
Belfast Telegraph
24 May 2012
Claims that a new vigilante group has been set up to target drug dealers in Derry’s loyalist areas are causing fear in the Protestant community, a politician has said.
A DUP councillor has passed on to the police a letter he received claiming to be from a vigilante group calling itself ‘Prods Against Drugs’ (PAD).
PAD claimed that it was aware of the names and addresses of “scumbag” drug dealers in the Newbuildings, Tullyally and Drumahoe areas and threatened to “shoot or kneecap” them within 48 hours if they did not desist from their activities.
Councillor Gary Middleton found the letter attached to his car windscreen when he arrived home on Saturday evening.
He said the letter had sparked widespread anxiety among residents in the Waterside.
The alarming development follows a bloody campaign waged by deadly vigilante group Republican Action Against Drugs (RAAD) in nationalist areas of Derry
Mr Middleton said: “We do not want to see a replica of what has gone on in nationalist areas.”
Anyone with information is asked to contact 0800 600 8000.
By Paul Ainsworth
Irish Echo
May 23rd, 2012
The great-grandson of Irish Republican icon James Connolly has stepped into a row over the future of a Dublin battle site from the 1916 Easter Rising.
Plans are afoot to demolish buildings around Moore Street, described as the “last battlefield” of the Rising and nicknamed “Dublin’s Alamo.” A plaque on the site declares it was where the rebels surrendered to the British after retreating from the blazing General Post Office. It has been revealed that a shopping center could be built at the site following demolition, but the move has angered both politicians and historians, just four years before the centenary of the Rising.
James Connolly Heron is prominent in the campaign to not only to stop the wrecking balls, but also to preserve the area due to its national significance.
“People are waking up to the fact that we have four years until the centenary,” said Connolly Heron.
“We need something to show the Gathering in 2016. Are we going to show people a monument to the rising, or are we going to show them a shopping center that is a monument to the Celtic Tiger,” he added.
The Moore Street site is one of the few remaining original locations from the Rising, with many having been demolished.
Sinn Féin leader and Louth TD Gerry Adams has joined calls to save the site, suggesting it could house a “cultural education center” and his call has been echoed by members of the other main parties.
“No public representative supports the plan as is. From that point of view we can be optimistic. It’s now time to take action. It’s time to walk the walk. It’s a very modest demand. What we are asking is that what is already a designated national monument be protected, so that future generations will still remember,” said Adams.
A debate over 90-year-old Irish killings illuminates historians’ conflicting roles. Matthew Reisz reports
By Matthew Reisz
Times Higher Education
24 May 2012
Lining up for battle: Irish Free State soldiers on parade, c.1922. Historians are divided on whether the war originated in sectarian hatred or political dispute
Over the course of three nights in late April 1922 in the west of County Cork, 18 people – all but one of them Protestant – were killed.
This bloody episode, known as the Bandon Valley Massacre, is notable in recent British and Irish history for the sheer number of individuals slaughtered from a particular religious minority.
It is now the focus of controversy in an academic dispute that raises questions about the differing roles of the research historian and the public historian driven by wider, political, aims.
The massacre featured prominently in a 1998 book by the late Canadian historian Peter Hart, The IRA and its Enemies: Violence and Community in Cork, 1916-1923.
But John Regan, a lecturer in history at the University of Dundee, now argues that Hart manipulated the historical evidence.
According to Regan, this manipulation fitted the massacre within a wider narrative espoused by Hart and other influential historians, a narrative that presents the violence of Irish history as stemming from ancient sectarian hatreds, and ignores structural factors in the creation of the IRA such as partition.
Hart, who died in 2010, originally won widespread acclaim for his powerful revisionist account of early Irish republican history. Yet it has also had its share of detractors. Times Higher Education reported how, at a 2008 conference at Queen’s University Belfast attended by Hart, critics issued a pamphlet entitled Troubled History: A 10th anniversary critique of Peter Hart’s The IRA and its Enemies.
A key plank in Hart’s revisionist argument was the Kilmichael ambush of 1920, where an IRA brigade led by Tom Barry killed 17 former British soldiers – although, he later claimed, only after the British had pretended to surrender and then shot three IRA men dead. Hart, who once described Barry as “little more than a serial killer”, denied that this extenuating “false surrender” had taken place.
Niall Meehan, head of the faculty of journalism and media communications at Griffith College Dublin, and the other authors of the pamphlet challenged Hart’s account, which relied on anonymous interviews with veterans of the ambush. Not only was “academic research without verifiable sources” questionable in itself, the critics argued, but all the relevant people had died or become incapacitated before the interviews were said to have taken place.
This may sound like a dispute about fairly minor details of motivation and methodology, of interest only to specialist historians. Yet both sides were convinced that far more was at stake.
Meehan told THE at the time that “Hart’s conclusions were welcomed [for political reasons] to the extent that flaws in the research were overlooked”, while Hart argued that his critics had “completely failed to engage with the book’s larger arguments about the nature of the IRA and the Irish Revolution”. The dispute has now been renewed, with fresh questions being raised over Hart’s research.
Ends and means
For Regan, who recently critiqued Hart’s work in the magazine History Ireland, there is a fundamental distinction between the genuine research historian and the “public historian” motivated by extraneous goals, however admirable, such as nation-building or defeating terrorism.
Regan writes that the tension between these two roles came to a head during the period of sectarian violence in Northern Ireland lasting from roughly 1969 to 1997. Some intellectuals, he says, declared that “overemphasising the achievements of revolutionary republicanism [in roughly the period covered by Hart's book] nourished the resurgent IRA…if the ‘wrong’ history was the active ingredient causing the ‘Troubles’, some argued, the ‘right’ history might help them end or stop them spreading…In wartime, it was reasoned, liberal-academic niceties had to be sacrificed to counterterrorism.”
Although Regan acknowledges that Irish historians were “pursu[ing] a noble objective” in “taking the offensive against the IRA”, it was “one far outside their discipline” and effectively allowed “the Provisionals [to become] the organising principle around which a pseudo-intellectual culture was hastily erected”.
In an atmosphere of “moral panic” which long “maimed Irish intellectual life”, historians risked accusations of being terrorist fellow-travellers or ultranationalists, Regan says. Hart’s work raised important issues about “the substance and credibility of research produced by the Irish historical profession”, he argues.
Although Regan calls The IRA and its Enemies “a page-turner” and “an extraordinarily skilled and crafted piece of writing”, he says in an interview with THE: “It’s not historical. It’s propagandist writing of a very subtle kind, which cannot be plausibly explained as a series of errors or omissions, a creation of a past suited to present needs.”
The key chapter of Hart’s work, which Regan subjected to searching analysis in the peer-reviewed journal History, concerns the Bandon Valley Massacre. Hart gave this chapter the title “Taking it out on the Protestants” and boldly states: “These men were shot because they were Protestants.” This explicitly rules out arguments that the motivation went beyond “naked sectarianism” to vengeance on those who had acted as informers or were involved in anti-IRA organisations.
There were clear reasons why Hart’s interpretation might have been well received at the time it was published, according to Regan. During the Troubles, he explains, “there was a tendency to talk about the violence as tribal, as motivated by deep atavistic religious hatreds, and an unwillingness to identify partition and structural issues as factors in the creation of the IRA [in the early 20th century]. Well-known writers such as Conor Cruise O’Brien and Roy Foster wanted to close down that debate and explain the violence solely in terms of ancient hatred.”
Omissions speak volumes
Regan believes he has found a smoking gun to back up his argument.
He has written in Irish Historical Studies about the way that partisan “public historians” reveal their biases through the elision of important evidence. Such elision is often difficult to spot, given that no one can “have read everything or…included everything”.
Regan says: “Elision can be accidental or reflect a conscious or even a subconscious response to historical information, but where patterns of omission occur, and are repeated, explanations not relying wholly on chance must be sought.”
Although he points to a number of anomalies, Regan flags up one particularly damning example of “elision” in The IRA and its Enemies. Arguing that the Protestants killed around Bandon could not have been informers, Hart cites a secret report of the British intelligence services from 1922 claiming that “in the South [of Ireland] the Protestants and those who supported the government rarely gave much information because, except by chance, they did not have it to give”.
This would have offered strong support to his case if the following sentences of the report – which Hart must have read but did not quote – had not continued: “An exception to this rule was in the Bandon area where there were many Protestant farmers who gave information … it proved almost impossible to protect those brave men, many of whom were murdered while almost all the remainder suffered grave material loss.” By including the generalisation and eliding the much more rele-vant caveat, Regan argues, Hart revealed that he had an axe to grind.
None of this, as Regan admits, proves that Hart was definitely wrong. “I believe the evidence is contradictory, whereas Peter produces an unambiguous account of sectarian violence which is unsound, ahistorical and unethical.”
Not surprisingly, Regan has his own challengers. Responding to his article in History Ireland, David Fitzpatrick, professor of modern history at Trinity College, Dublin and Hart’s original PhD supervisor – argued in a letter to the journal that: “Regan neglects the complexity of Hart’s argument in his eagerness to denounce this or that pithy phrase…Nowhere did Hart claim that most republican violence was directed against Protestants, that sectarianism was the dominant strand in republican mentality or that other groups identified as suspect ‘outsiders’…fared any better.” Researchers such as Hart and himself, he added, were not “paradigm-primed political pawns or plotters but ‘revisionists’ in the benign sense of that much-abused term”.
On the basis of some technical arguments, Regan believes he has proved Hart guilty of too categorical an interpretation of the motives of the (unknown) people who carried out this savage attack 90 years ago. Yet what sounds like a rather rarefied academic controversy also has far wider significance, exposing tangled questions of Irish identity, politics and responses to communal violence.
matthew.reisz@tsleducation.com
Renegade republicans want to be known for their ‘successes’. But their increasing failures are matched only by the sterility of their campaign, says Brian Rowan
Brian Rowan
Belfast Telegraph
23 May 2012
A police source, speaking to this newspaper, described a “constant battle” with dissident republicans – much of which is unseen.
That battle includes a mix of security things; both off-stage intelligence operations and visible policing, the two designed to try to stop the different armed groups. It is about spoiling their war plans.
Just last weekend, seven people, including two brothers and a cousin of prominent dissident republican Colin Duffy, appeared in court on a range of charges. Duffy’s older brother Paul, is charged with directing terrorism.
It follows a major investigation involving both the police and the Security Service, MI5, whose off-stage role is monitoring, using their gadgetry to watch and listen.
There is always background activity.
Just a few weeks ago, a van-bomb was discovered outside Newry; 600lbs of explosives packed into two barrels and fitted with all its deadly parts.
The van – left with its engine running – was discovered by a member of the public, who contacted the police. One theory was that the vehicle had been abandoned short of its target.
Since then, however, different and more fixed thinking has emerged. “It would appear we were the principal target,” a police source confirmed.
The bomb was to be triggered by remote control and this was, in the words of the source, “an attempt to bring us in and detonate”. That security operation was something all of us could see, but it is only part of the picture.
“This is fairly constant,” the police source said, meaning dissident activity, including the things we don’t see.
“It is not something that occurs every six months,” he continued. “It’s a constant battle.”
And it is something else; a reminder of the real dangers in these continuing dissident war games; why the police, in response to a whole range of alerts, need to think carefully about what to do and when to do it.
So, they don’t rush in to the trap. They need measured steps.
In this situation the dissident plan did not produce the result they wanted. They would want their ‘wars’ to be defined by what they would consider their ‘successes’ – those things that happen as they intend.
In their cold thinking, this is the gun attack on Massereene army barracks, the shooting of police constable Stephen Carroll and the bomb that killed Ronan Kerr.
There were headlines in the bomb attack at Palace Barracks in Holywood, which houses MI5.
These are some of those war ‘successes’, but again, in this we only see part of the picture. A significant part of the dissident story is what doesn’t work – and why. At the start of this year, Oglaigh na hEireann (ONH) played a game of cat-and-mouse with soldiers visiting Belfast, before placing a booby-trap bomb inside one of their cars.
It claimed it was a grenade placed under the driver’s seat with a trip-wire attached to the seatbelt buckle (police said it was a pipe-bomb). This time the device was discovered and no one was hurt.
A year earlier, in January 2011, also in north Belfast, ONH set a double bomb-trap intended for police. It claimed the presence of a civilian, a woman, stopped them detonating the first device, which had been attached to a command wire running to a firing point.
A second device was found in the follow-up security operation, which ONH again claimed was a grenade on a trip-wire. Police sources described it as a military-type training flare.
So, there is this pattern of things that don’t work; bombs that fail to detonate, or only partially explode, or are abandoned for one reason or another. And this is also a significant part of the dissident story; important context when assessing the threat.
It is not just about what they would consider to be their ‘successes’, but also the ‘failures’. Some of it will be because of technical inexperience; at other times because they have been interrupted by security activity. And there will be occasions, such as the example in north Belfast, when they were forced to pause because of civilian presence.
Still, we only have part of the story.
There will be information coming out of the dissident organisations and into the intelligence world that we are not told about. Dissident bombs have been neutralised before being moved and put in place at targets; explosives removed and replaced by another substance in a process known as ‘substitution’.
In these war games, these are things we don’t see. But there are things we know and the dissidents also know; that these continuing wars cannot be won.
Yes, these organisations have the ability to kill, have done so and will try again. For what purpose?
There are republicans who do not support Sinn Fein, but who remain opposed to any armed struggle. The dissidents should listen to those republicans and explore and find different ways to be heard.
Their bombs won’t work and their wars won’t work.
By Barry McCaffrey
TheDetail.tv
24 May 2012
**Via Newshound
Former Police Ombudsman chief executive Sam Pollock will be appointed as the new head of the Policing Board within days, sources confirmed on Tuesday.
Mr Pollock dramatically resigned as chief executive of OPONI last April claiming the independence of the ombudsman’s office has been undermined by interference from senior civil servants within the Department of Justice.
As a result of Mr Pollock’s claims two inquiries were subsequently launched to investigate his allegations.
The first report, carried out by Community Relations Council (CRC) chairman Tony McCusker, exposed deep divisions inside the ombudsman’s office and questioned the leadership given by Al Hutchinson to staff.
Mr McCusker confirmed that he had found evidence of interference by the Department of Justice (DoJ).
His review was critical of the role of the Northern Ireland Office, but claimed it had found no “systematic interference’’ from civil servants.
However a second report carried out by Criminal Justice Inspectorate (CJI) Dr Michael Maguire, which was first reported by The Detail in August 2011, was even more damaging to Mr Hutchinson.
The CJI report recommended that OPONI suspend work on all Troubles related cases due to “the flawed nature of the investigation process’’.
Crucially it confirmed Mr Pollock’s claims of a “lowering of independence’’ inside the ombudsman’s office with senior OPONI officials asking to be disassociated from investigation reports because they could not agree with the findings.
Nationalists demanded Mr Hutchinson’s immediate resignation.
He subsequently announced that he would step down early and left in January.
Dr Michael Maguire was subsequently appointed as the new Police Ombudsman.
He will take up the post in July.
The Policing Board was also left without a full time chief executive last March after the resignation of Adrian Donaldson.
Mr Donaldson had been absent from the chief executive’s post on health grounds since December 2011.
He had been subject to an external review of his work amid claims he was under-performing in the role.
News Letter
23 May 2012
ONE of the men convicted of murdering Constable Stephen Carroll is to have his sentence reviewed after claims it was unduly lenient.
The Director of Public Prosecutions (DPP), Barra McGrory, is to examine the 14-year tariff handed down to John Paul Wootton on Monday for the murder of the officer in Craigavon three years ago — and decide whether it would be appropriate to refer the sentence to the Court of Appeal.
Pressure has been mounting on the Justice Minister to introduce a mandatory minimum sentence for similar murders since the officer’s widow spoke of her “disgust” at the judge’s decision.
Several politicians and media commentators have joined Kate Carroll in demanding an urgent review of the sentencing policy in Northern Ireland.
Yesterday, a DPP spokesman said: “Mrs Carroll, through Mr [Paul] Givan MLA, has asked the Director of Public Prosecutions, Barra McGrory QC, to review the sentence to decide whether or not it is appropriate for him to exercise his power under the Criminal Justice Act 1988 to refer the sentence to the Court of Appeal on the grounds that it may be unduly lenient.”
A spokesperson for the Public Prosecution Service later confirmed to the News Letter that they will be reviewing Wootton’s sentence.
It also emerged yesterday that a motion will come before the Assembly on June 11 which calls for “a review of sentencing for the murder of PSNI officers”.
At Belfast Crown Court on Monday, the relatively young age of John Paul Wootton from Lurgan — one of the two men convicted of shooting dead the officer in 2009 — was considered by the judge to be a major mitigating factor.
Although he turned 21 last week, Wootton was 17 when Constable Carroll was murdered by the Continuity IRA in Craigavon.
Justice Minister David Ford has rejected calls for minimum sentences, describing them as a “blunt instruments” that “do not recognise the full range of circumstances which can come before a court.”
Speaking yesterday, a spokesman for the Justice Department said it was right that judges had discretion when it came to sentencing, and added: “The minister intends to make an announcement in the next month on the way forward on sentencing guidelines mechanisms.”
Wootton and his 41-year-old co-accused Brendan McConville from Craigavon were convicted of the killing earlier this year but had been brought back to court for sentencing by Lord Justice Girvan.
The judge deemed there were no mitigating circumstances in McConville’s case and handed down a minimum 25-year term before he can be considered for release.
Speaking immediately after the court hearing, the widow of the slain officer described Wootton’s 14-year tariff as “disgusting” and said her own family were now serving a life sentence.
Justice Committee chairman Paul Givan MLA and his DUP colleague Jonathan Craig both called for a review of Wootton’s sentence.
Mr Givan said the 14-year term “failed to recognise the gravity of the crime” and added: “It will fail to act as a deterrent to young people who are being recruited by terrorist organisations. Indeed, it only serves to encourage these organisations to use more young people for terrorist activities.”
Mr Craig, a member of the Policing Board, said: I would urge the Justice Minister to bring our sentencing regime into line with that which exists in other parts of the United Kingdom. Terrorists should know that if they kill a police officer they will go to jail for 30 years before being considered for parole.”
Ulster Unionist member of the Policing Board Ross Hussey also voiced his concern, saying: “Kate Carroll’s disgust at the 14 year minimum sentence for one of the murderers will be shared by all right-thinking people in Northern Ireland.”
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