PPS

Belfast Telegraph misses the point

Today’s ‘Editor’s viewpoint’ , unsurprisingly, misses the point completely. The test for prosecution is not and never was an issue in MC,AA and BB. It does not feature in Starmer’s report.

Study instead Pournelle’s Iron Law of Bureaucracy and the Peter Principle.

Look at the officials involved in this shambles and ask if they were up to the job.

Ask them what the organisation expected of them. The answer will be ‘stats’.

In my own experience , the high command  was not interested in issues about victims, for example , about the evidence of young children , there were no medals for that.

Every organisation is taken over by the bureaucrats and every person in it is promoted beyond his/her level of ability. The PPS is no different.

There are no bad soldiers only bad officers

Kier Starmer made a number of criticisms of the PPS. Any prosecuting barrister could have told him of the failings if he had cared to ask. The service provided to victims has always been wanting. Frequently the defence is represented by senior and junior counsel attended by a solicitor and frequently the prosecution is in the hands of junior counsel or employed counsel attended by an unqualified clerk.

Worse still is the enormous pressure place on these clerks, who are left to be the conduit between victims, the witnesses, the court, the police, the directing officer and counsel. None of the PPS high command, mentioned by Starmer, has ever had a career prosecuting  in the Crown Court and they are rarely seen there.

The problems suffered by the three complainants are not new. The victim is less well looked after than the accused. For example in Craigavon, the PPS has no dedicated , private, room in which to consult with victims. It was taken off them without a fight.

Of course like all organisations, found out at last , the promise is for new organisational structures. I’m surprised that nobody said “we have learned lessons”.

All the reorganisation in the world will be of no avail until there is a culture change at the heart of the PPS. Less obsession with ‘stats’ and more interest in the court process would be a start. The Irish Times  today says  that the two counsel involved have reported themselves to the Bar Council. Let’s see what happens to the civil servants, responsible for delivering the service.

Meanwhile Napoleon’s dictum is as relevant as ever.

The murders of James and Ellen Sefton

My research into these murders will be complete in the next ten days.

The PSNI and the Director of Public Prosecutions have failed to give proper regard to the points I have raised. Accordingly I am lodging a complaint with the Police Ombudsman.

On 6th June 2015, the twenty fifth anniversary of the murders I will publish here a full account of my allegations.

OTRs Easter Quiz

Here is my Easter Quiz.

Part I

Are the OTR letters:

A Entirely worthless

B Not entirely worthless

C Maybe entirely worthless

D Largely worthless

E Of little legal significance

F Politically important

G Letters that had value

Part II

Who vigourosly pursued the letters?

Who was sold a pup and why?

Who was just a postman for Sinn Fein?

Who had a meeting with ACC Sheridan about the letters?

Who never saw the letters at the time?

Who has seen them now?

Replies to the PPS, Chichester St Belfast

Piers’ Diary

Hi!

I’m in charge of the Irish Desk at Number Ten.

I was educated at a famous public school and read Greats at Oxbridge. Got a Third but as the man said only a Third and a First are worth a damn. I joined the Civil Service and progressed up the ranks.

They asked me to sort out the Paddies in the 1990’s.

Problem was that occasionally they slipped a big bomb into the City. [My chums were well pissed at that and I got grief at the wine bar on a Friday night].

So I came up with a scheme. All the green Paddies would be left alone,even the mass murderers, provided that the bombing stopped. They could be assemblymen or whatever provided they said that they were democrats, they could cross their fingers if they liked.

Then we had to deal with the Orange Paddies. They are big into their religion so we got a few compliant clerics to tell them all about forgiveness. Best of all we got that big Orange bigot Paisley turned. Not so difficult after Kincora. We then turned all the other sex offenders and gays in his party and the heterosexual ones with the dodgy spouses. [Main point was they couldn’t bomb the City.]

Of course they weren’t alone. We had the videos of all the important Green paddies abusing boys and girls.

Just how good are Box? Years of experience at our disposal!

Next we identified young wannabes in the law, academics, business, arts etc. They were all taken to Enniskillen and told how fab they were. Worked a treat. Now on the bench, chairmen of NGO’s , health trusts etc.

The place is trussed up like a turkey . No workable dissent.

There were occasional blips like Downey but since he was a tout it got sorted. Very worthy NI committee didn’t get a sniff….

As my old professor said: “finis coronat opus”.

They want me to sort out the Royal sex abuse allegations next….

Best….Piers  x

Finucane-what we have in common

Geraldine Finucane is reported as saying “gunmen were two-a-penny in Northern Ireland. They don’t interest me. I’m interested in the chain of command.’  If she did say that , I agree with her. I, too, on the ninetieth anniversary of my father’s birth, am interested in the chain of command that led to his murder and the murder of my mother.

The chain of command led from the ASU , through Spike Murray, Bobby Storey and Brian Gillen , to Martin McGuinness. At least one of this group and possibly more, were State agents.

The murder of Pat Finucane, whom I knew, is no more replete with State involvement than many murders in Northern Ireland. Paramilitary organisations were so heavily infiltrated by the late 1980s that the State had overall control of who lived and who died.

The line parroted by the police , that “there are no fresh evidential leads” is a barefaced lie in many cases.

What government in the West does not target the leaders of terrorist organisations? Consider the behaviour of the Americans and the Israelis. Does it not strike the ordinary citizen of Northern Ireland that not one senior terrorist leader was prosecuted after the 1970s?

I am sure that there is information, given by State agents, which would lead to the prosecution of many senior paramilitary figures. To blame, for example, the Republic of Ireland for withholding information on Kingsmills is a clever red herring, dangled by the British and swallowed by people like Wiilliam Frazer. The truth is sitting in British files.

It’s time to prise it free and do justice for all those killed by the State.

So far , of course, unlike the Finucane family I have not had the advantage of any inquiry.

Nothing is True and Everything is Possible

This is the title of a book by Peter Pomerantsev. He paints a picture of a counterfeit democracy ruled by television, where all trappings of freedom are present, elections, an opposition, a functioning judiciary and a free media but little reality. It is “a strange and effective confection of propaganda, disinformation and entertainment.”

He is describing Russia, I don’t think he has been to “our wee country”. Would he notice much difference? At least Russia has an opposition.

PSNI-careless talk? Or worse?

On 11th August ACC Harris, as he then was said this , [in response to my assertion that Ed Moloney ,in his book”A Secret History of the IRA, pointed to McGuinness as the man who had ordered the murders of my parents] :

“The information contained within the book …is anonymous. The author Ed Moloney has previously been spoken to and is unwilling to disclose the identity of his sources.”

The police told the Senior Assistant Director of the PPS the same thing. He repeated to me: “Mr Moloney has previously been spoken to by police and was unwilling to disclose the identity of his sources.” The police were not briefing Mr Herron about interactions with Ed Moloney, they were dealing with a specific allegation.

Mr Moloney told me that no police officer had ever spoken to him about anything in his book, originally published in 2002.

I challenged the Chief Constable. He nodded the ball to ACC Kerr. He nodded the ball to D Supt Murphy, who seems to be in the Legacy Investigations Branch, probably the fourth or fifth outfit I have had to deal with. He replied :”ACC Harris previously wrote to you about interactions with Mr Moloney. In that letter , Mr Harris states that previous requests to Mr Moloney have not resulted in a positive response. I should emphasise that this was intended to reference other cases within the remit of the Historical Enquiries Team , rather than the murders of your parents specifically. I apologise if any confusion was caused.”

Of course ACC Harris did not write to me “about interactions with Mr Moloney”. He wrote to me about a specific allegation contained in a book written over twelve years ago.

Readers can make up their own mind about the honesty  of the police responses.

It now appears that they are going to attempt to make contact with Mr Moloney.

The fact is that the police were ordered not to investigate the chain of command in any bombing or shooting. The ASU did not just have an idea one day that they would go and kill someone. It was scouted , planned and approved. In my parents’ case the project would have gone up the line through Spike Murray, Brian Gillen, Bobby Storey and then to McGuinness. At least two of these people were State informers, Gillen and McGuinness.

I therefore allege that the State was aware of the identity of the people who conspired to kill my parents , as well as the killers themselves. Effectively, the State was engaged in murder. This matter will now be taken up again with the PPS, though not with the Director, who was at all material times, McGuinness’s lawyer. I am not aware of whether or not he represented Spike Murray , Brian Gillen or Bobby Storey.

Meanwhile I still await the PSNI explanation about forensic examination of UCBTs, outstanding since 13th November.

PSNI “liars” part II

Senior Assistant Director Stephen Herron of the Public Prosecution Service also spoke to the police about this matter. Here is what he recounted to me in his letter of 28th November.

“it has been confirmed by ACC Kerr that with the exception of open source reference material  [Mr Maloney’s book…] which directly implicates Mr McGuinness, there is no evidential basis or intelligence available to link him with the murder of your parents.

As has been noted in previous correspondence you received from PSNI, the contributions to the book are anonymous and cannot be verified or corroborated for factual accuracy. Mr Moloney has previously been spoken to by police and was unwilling to disclose the identity of his sources”

Hopefully the PPS will also seek an explanation.

Stand by for the mystery of the missing forensic report…..