RFJ Response to Revelations About Historical Enquiries Team (HET) As Revealed in New Study
This report makes a huge contribution to what is now required and must govern whatever mechanism replaces the HET. The litany of systemic failings in every aspect of the HET functionality make it patently obvious that the HET is beyond reform lest there exist any doubt. What we require is an independent international truth commission with an investigations unit.
RFJ have always maintained that the HET process is not an independent one given that it is accountable to the PSNI Chief Constable. The senior officers running the HET spent several years under both Hugh Orde and Lord Stevens investigating collusion and the findings of that report have not seen the light of day.
This is apart from Dr. Lundy’s findings that also expose that 18 former RUC and Special Branch officers are at the heart of the Intelligence Unit within the HET filtering information as part of a series of ‘gatekeeping’ exercises – the most senior of which is a former Special Branch officer with over 30 years of experience who is the Intelligence Manager and who also plays a further ‘gatekeeping’ role as a standing member of the HET’s Review and Resolution Panel deciding on what action, if any, is required by the HET in terms of controversial cases. The fact that the report also reveals that members of the Public Prosecution Service and the NIO are responsible for a core group known as the Financial Monitoring Group (FMG) that decide on key HET policy and finances all lie at the heart of consistent failings of independence. This is nothing short of scandalous. We would ask if the former soldier involved in the HET as Command Secretary, Information Manager and Specified person of Contact with the MoD was involved in Military Intelligence in the North and in particular the 14th Intelligence/Force Research Unit (FRU). We note that the HET and the Chief Constable did not permit access by Dr. Lundy to the precise details of this mostly secretive group.
On one hand HET literature and PR cite that they want to assist families and provide information whilst at the same time the Chief Constable is refusing to provide families with information in his possession concerning the murders of their loved ones at inquests and inquiries. The Chief Constable even threatening to use Public Interest Immunity Certificates (gagging orders). This recurring feature of contradiction is clear for all to see. And whilst the Chief Constable resorts to the best available legal representation in withholding information the preferred position of the HET is to work with families outside of them having proper legal representation. The HET have exploited the vulnerability of bereaved relatives and their genuine desire to know the truth and thus many simply, and understandably in the circumstances, engaged the HET in an attempt to find out that truth.
This manipulation is calculated even to the point of preferential treatment of certain cases in seeking to win over the confidence of nationalists at the expense of unionist victims concerns in which the manipulation can be viewed as political.
The HET was never designed to deliver to those families from across the community whose loved ones were killed in circumstances involving the State. It is a process of managing the environment and preventing potentially damaging information about the activities of State agents involved in murders from emerging. The HET engages in a very calculated and cynical exercise seeking to gain the confidence of families with that aim as a central part of their strategy.
The HET is big on marketing and PR but thin on actual delivery. The statistics speak for themselves.
It is being indicated by political and media commentators that the HET can simply move its operational control away from the PSNI and merge with the existing element within the Police Ombudsman’s office that examines past cases as part of the anticipated announcement from the Eames/Bradley Consultative Group on the Past. This will not work and those who believe otherwise should read this report and recommendations.
Our primary focus needs to be on the creation of an entirely independent and international investigative unit attached to an international truth commission that all sections of the community can have confidence in. We need to take the key learning from Dr. Lundy’s report as the core building blocks for any future development around this work post the HET.
Mark Thompson
Relatives for Justice
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