belfast news letter

Derry INLA parade, an update

Detectives from the Serious Crime Branch have taken time out from investigating murders to review video evidence form the O’Hara funeral.

Looking at footage from a Landrover some thirty metres away , Sgt Andrew Windsor said “The guy in the third row , right, looks like someone I arrested five years ago. It’s his belly I recognise”

Constable Nelson Wellington said “many of these people appear to have a leg deformity, preventing them from marching properly. I shall be reviewing the DLA records in Londonderry to see if they have claimed.”

Meanwhile, in an astonishing development, it was revealed that a PSNI drone had been deployed at the march to look for tattoos. It captured twenty two tattoos [ not easy to say] and police are visiting parlours to see if tattooists can identify anyone who has had “FUCK THE PSNI” tattooed recently.

In another twist , Chief Inspector William Boyne said that a female marcher was wearing a size 22 white blouse and that he was confident that he could pin point this person as having bought it in Primark.

Asked if arrests were expected soon the Divisional commander smiled.

We asked retired prosecutor Peter Swiftone if there was a chance of convictions in the case. He said ” I haven’t seen a decent file come out of Derry since Martin McGuinness was prosecuted.”

We pointed out that he ultimately wasn’t.

Swiftone, took his glass of red wine from his lips and said “precisely”.

The Police Ombudsman –progress report II

Back in 2006, when I was an innocent sort of chap, who didn’t think that the state would be complicit in the murders of a retired policeman and his wife , I made a complaint to the Ombudsman about the standard of investigation into their murders.

In 2015, when the scales had fallen from my eyes, I made an entirely different complaint, naming each member of the bomb team and asserting that some, if not all of them were state agents. The Ombudsman, who I shall hereafter call the ‘Big O” has declined to investigate my complaint. The basis for the refusal is that the 2001 regulations “carves out a discretionary exception to these limitations”

I began studying law in 1967 and this phrase is new to me but perhaps I’m just not keeping up.

Nuala O’Loan has said that she came under pressure from the state to  refuse to investigate matters.

Maguire, the present Big O is of course a man who has been a state employee for some time and one wonders about his impartiality. Anyway, I have sought clarification from him.

Who made this decision and what is the precise statutory basis for it?

Students of law and others might be interested in looking at regulation 9 [2] of the 2001 regulations, which “carves out” , if this is the new legal argot, an exception if the new complaint is “not the same or substantially the same as a previous complaint”. My original complaint was that the investigation was inadequate. My new complaint is that the state was complicit. They are different complaints.

Of course, the list of state agents in my letter will have caused panic in the Establishment and has resulted in  a threat from at least one agent.

It’s disappointing that the Big O’s  refusal is so amateurish but that’s what you get in Norn Iron.

So, let’s see what the response is.

Aside from the stupidity of it all, how many people, less advantaged than I am, have been spoofed by the Big O?

Touts are everywhere

Way back, when the occupying power, as James Galway describes it, decided to recruit pro- agreement people and place them in law , administration, business and other key places, they must also have thought about journalists and politicians .

Our local journalists are keen to write articles about  who might have been a tout, loyalist or republican but how many of them are state agents? Imagine the access they have to the inner workings of the terrorists. See Kim Philby’s career. When the SIS ‘ditched’ him , they sent him to Beirut under cover as a journalist for the Observer and the Economist. So, shall we have an article , outing journalists or is that beyond the Pale?

Politicians. Most of Sinn Fein/IRA lost the opportunity for education by being banged up. The loyalists, on the other hand availed of third level education. A favourite fishing ground for Box and SIS is Oxbridge. Who went there?…No! Surely not!

Let’s think who else would be useful. A lawyer! They have access to all sorts of information. Perhaps someone transgressed and men came at dead of night and said, “well Paddy/ William, no more will be heard of this little problem but we’d like some information from you, from time to time”. Such information, about their clients, from a barrister or solicitor, would be priceless. What would be the reward? Judicial office?

Then there is that mass of mostly dead wood who inhabit  all sorts of NGOs. Check out their bios and you will find that they are re-cycled at an alarming rate. What they have in common is “sit down you’re rocking the boat”. For this view the NIO and the OFMDFM rewards them handsomely. Frank Cushnahan comes to mind for a reason that I can’t quite put my finger on. Many rose without a trace  from the University of Ulster. Sport NI is just the tip of the toxic iceberg.

So, come on you journos, let’s be having you!

What’s Irish for eeney,meeney, miney,moe?

Readers of this blog will know that part of my case against the state is that at the time of the murders of my parents, PIRA was so thoroughly penetrated that the state not only knew who killed them but could have prevented it and had agents participating in the crimes.

Anne Cadwallader, in the opening pages of chapter eight of  her remarkable book “Lethal Allies” articulates how victims feel.

“He is a bit obsessed you know…”

Here is what  de Silva has noted , when he investigated the murder of Patrick Finucane.

The Commanding Officer of the Force Research Unit said; “You cannot report on a terrorist organisation unless you have someone at the centre of things”.

In March 1991 the Secretary of State for Defence wrote: “we cannot expect to obtain valuable intelligence from agents that are not at the heart of the target organisation or group.”

So, let’s think. In PIRA, who was at the “centre” or the “heart”?

No, surely not! That can’t be right! Gerry, Marty, Bobby, the Army Council, Northern Command, Belfast CO?

Readers might accept that there would be little point in recruiting the woman cleaning Connolly House or even one of Gerry’s bodyguards.

So, who were the agents involved in the events of 6th June 1990?

Patience, Dear Reader!

A prominent rapist died today

The murder of “Jock” Davison, while hardly the saddest thing to happen this year, exposes again the double think in this society.

Despite being a terrorist, a member of northern command and no doubt a multiple murderer the Belfast Telegraph described him as “a former IRA ‘OC’ for Belfast and the BBC “the prominent republican”. You would have to look hard to find him described as a terrorist or a murderer.

Imagine a headline “Joe Bloggs, the well known rapist and child molester died today”.

Imagine the howls of outrage from the Sisters, Liberals and others, wanting to know why Joe had not been ‘brought to justice’.

The point is that Northern Ireland’s “free press” is in thrall to the Northern Ireland Office. Giving the Shinners a kicking via Mairia Cahill is good for the establishment , particularly in  Dublin but don’t mention the war.

Lies and the RUC Special Branch

It is reported that Chief Supt. Nigel Grimshaw told the AGM of the Superintendents’ Association of NI that “we need to see the full implementation of strategies and policies which deal with those issues which continue to haunt us, parades , identities and in particular the past.”

He and his bosses would do the community and the past a great service by opening up the secret Special Branch files and confessing as to what is in them.

The concept that the identity or safety of paramilitary touts trumps the prosecution of those who should stand trial for the murder of innocent civilians is deeply wrong.

Of course the state could order the opening of the files or some Special Branch man, luxuriating in his Patton pension, topped up with further state work, could salve his conscience by telling the truth.

Come to think of it, there must be a few Branch men still left in the current PSNI high command, if Marty is right.

PSNI no longer “personal ,professional, protective policing”?

Readers will know that I intend to walk through my experience with the state in respect of the murders of my parents.

Today, my exposition is the failure of the PSNI to properly relate to those who correspond with them.

It seems that “personal, professional, protective policing” has been replaced , on the 2015 letter heading , with “keeping people safe”. I wonder why?

I’m told that only two police stations Musgrave and Strand Road are open though the night, I wonder if this is correct?

Anyway, chronologically, here are the officers I have dealt with in my quest for justice for my parents. It is important to know that I always wrote to the Chief Constable, most of who couldn’t be arsed replying personally , except for Hugh!

ACC McQuillan

ACC Hunter

DI Blair

CC Hugh Orde!!!

ACC Kincaid

DS Stewart

ACC Harris

D Ch S Hanna

ACC Harris [again!]

ACC Kerr

I think I’m going backwards again.

The FOI response, promised last week on forensics , has not materialised.

Blog by blog I will take you through the swamp that is supposedly the investigation of terrorist activity in Northern Ireland. Thousands of other crimes are presumably dealt with in a similar fashion , while one of the architects, McGuinness, is DFM.

You will be unsurprised to learn that I have had no explanation from  the PSNI  about  their statement about Ed Moloney.

NI Executive, Libya and the opportunity

One of the problems with the present talks is lack of additional money. Another is funding “the past”. In May 2011, the National Transitional Council in Libya signed a memorandum of understanding in which they said that it was their “sincere desire to enter discussions to consider an appropriately resourced humanitarian fund to be set up to recognise the pain and suffering of such victims and the wider society in the UK , and in particular Northern Ireland”. This was after it had apologised for the harm caused by the supply of guns and semtex to PIRA, led by Martin McGuinness and others.

The Foreign and Commonwealth Office was tasked with examining ways in which this fund might be established and resourced. Three years on , it has made no progress.

It is estimated that 3,500 people, mostly in Northern Ireland, could benefit from this fund. It is an important aspect of dealing with the past.

Billions of pounds of Gadafy’s assets are frozen in the UK , yet no politician, or lawyer,local or national,  appears to have the skill to make this happen.

Kafka is alive and well

Readers of this blog and of the press  may be aware of certain difficulties I have experienced with the Bar Council. These, as they are at pains to point out , are matters that the public can come and hear about. Hence I am making them public to you. I have now been provided with a folder of prints out of my blog. They want me to take these to Dr Paul Miller and ask him to opine as to whether or not in the circumstances , I am really  “cured” and fit to practise as a barrister. This route has apparently been taken because Allison Morris and her employer , the Irish News,  have complained about my response to her article about me in their paper, an article which I believe was Sinn Fein/IRA inspired. The Bar Council then printed out all my blogs.

Included in folder , and flagged up,  is one I wrote about my friend , the late  Jack Kyle, a man whom I admired greatly. Jack wrote to the Irish Times on 26 July 1966 and delivered a stinging criticism of  Paisley and his views. I commented on this:

“Jack expresses views that have been discarded by all sides in a headlong rush for money and power. Maybe I’m just getting old but I regret his passing and the loss of his values”

I have no idea what the Bar Council’s objection is to this blog but no doubt I , and you, should you choose to attend the public hearing, will find out in January  from Frazer Elliott Q.C. who appears for the Bar Council and who will, no doubt produce some evidence from a professional medical person to support his case.

Of course it may just be as simple as my face doesn’t fit in the new dispensation [proceedings against the Lord Chief Justice?]. It has been accepted by Elliott in the last public hearing  that I have had an exemplary thirty year professional career at the Bar. So what’s not to like…….?

Young barristers

The Irish Times reports today that sixty percent of the law library’s members have been in practice less than ten years.

“Many of them have part time jobs as teachers , waiters-even security guards- just to make ends meet”.

Frowned on in Belfast?

Positive approach by David Barniville in Dublin. But then again, his country is well ahead of us where women lawyers are concerned.