Diverting officers to investigate past crimes a ‘tension’ for PSNI, says chief

Diverting police officers from frontline duties to investigate Northern Ireland’s troubled past creates a “tension” for the PSNI, chief constable Simon Byrne has said.

Mr Byrne said that while his force was shrinking in size due to budget cuts, it would continue to investigate the past while a Government Bill to deal with the legacy of the Troubles passed through Parliament.

But he conceded that the scale of investigating more than 1,400 unsolved murders was “enormous”.

The Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill proposed offering immunity from prosecution to those who committed crimes during the Troubles, if they co-operated with a truth-recovery body.

The legislation would also stop new inquests and civil cases taking place.

The House of Lords on Monday voted to remove the contentious immunity provision.

The Legacy Bill will now return to the House of Commons where further changes, including reinstating the immunity provision, may be made by MPs.

Victims groups, the main Stormont political parties and the Irish government have all expressed their opposition to the Bill.

Mr Byrne said regardless of how the legislation ended up, the PSNI would adjust its policing response accordingly.

He said: “In terms of the issue, it is self-evident that it is an emotive issue for many, many people.

“It is a very difficult Rubicon to square up.

“We do have a lot of staff still investigating the past.”

The chief constable said he had met this week with John Boucher, the former Bedfordshire chief constable who is heading up Operation Kenova investigating the activities of the former British Army agent known as Stakeknife.

Mr Byrne said his staff and officers were also supporting other legacy investigations, inquests and civil litigation.

He added: “We are still looking at over 1,400 murders here, the scale is enormous.

“It does divert people from frontline duties and this is one of the dilemmas we have got.

“You can pick up the papers most days and there is an issue about a sexual crime, a serious assault, paramilitary crime, the list will go on.

“Every trained detective we have got looking at the past isn’t dealing with the here and now, that is one of our tensions.”

The chief constable said there was a planning assumption that the legislation around legacy investigations would change next May, but that his force would proceed with investigations in the interim.

He said: “We have got to keep working with criminal justice partners and families and victims to make sure that until the situation changes, we will continue to investigate the past.”

Mr Byrne said the process of providing historical information to legacy inquests was also taking up a large amount of police time.

He said: “You have to understand that we have to work within agreed rules of how we share information from the past, particularly to support tactics that are central to national security.

“The demands that are being placed on us are growing exponentially, so we have to vet every officer to a high standard that does this, we have to train them in the use of systems and sometimes the amount of information the inquest or inquiry wants is voluminous.

“Also, just over the horizon is the Omagh bomb inquiry, which again will have expectations about the recovery of sensitive and detailed information from our archives, which frankly does take time.”