psni

Police and the bomb makers

During the course of the “troubles”, between 150 and 200 people were killed by under car booby trap bombs. In the period 1987-1992, thirty two attacks took place in the Belfast area. These devices, used almost exclusively by PIRA , reflected their cowardice and the morals of one of their leaders, Old Grandpa McGuinness, that folksy murderer who is now the Deputy First Minister.

What will  shock readers is the attitude of the RUC and PSNI to these devices. Here is what police told me:

“The intelligence picture showed there was a high degree of expertise within the Provisional IRA vested in an extremely small number of people. When the police identified these individuals they were subject of  [sic] intensive operations to target and disrupt their activities”

Imagine that instead of murder, rape was the crime. Contemplate the outcry if police said; “intelligence shows us that there are several serial rapists in the Belfast area. These people are known to us and they are the subject of intensive operations to target and disrupt their activity.”

To my knowledge, no UCBT bomb maker was ever convicted . My view is that the RUC high command did not try too hard, on orders from above.

Why do we accept this as normal?

Libya and William Frazer

Mr Frazer, who is apparently a loyalist campaigner of sorts , rang me today to complain about comments allegedly made about him on my blog. He said that he had not seen them but people had contacted him. I undertook to examine my blog and to delete any message which may be considered  abusive or libellous. I could find only one item which referred to him at all. It was from “Mike Gambit”, not his real name I’m sure. He wondered why “the self proclaimed victims [sic] champion isn’t spitting nails over this issue”.

This seems to me to be a perfectly reasonable comment.

Stopping there, readers may wonder what the relationship is between me and Mr Frazer.

The answer is -absolutely none. I am a claimant on a writ issued in a court in the USA. My lawyers are Motley Rice of South Carolina. So , of Mr Frazer I have had no need.

Anyway , if one scrolls back in time to October 2011 , here is what the Sunday Times proclaimed.

“Libya will pay out to IRA victims”

Mr Frazer is quoted in that journal : “the deal has been agreed and the victims or their surviving families will receive between £2 million and £3 million each”

Three years on , nobody has seen a penny. Mr Frazer, in conversation with me , blamed the British Government for going back on their word. Bizzarely, this is the first I have heard of this.

His conversation was vaguely threatening, but he might just have been put up to that by others.

Fact is , I don’t threaten easily , especially about my parents’ murders.

He also criticised me for potentially queering a deal . I asked him if a deal was imminent. he said it was not.

I’m still trying to understand what he has done in the last three years to remedy the ‘betrayal’ by HMG.

Northern Ireland loyalists have had their share of carpetbaggers and charlatans in the last fifty years.

My claim relates to the brutal murder of my parents in 1990.

Any compensation would go substantially to my daughter who has had to live with the consequences of the incident, all her life.

Money is important to all victims.

For me? I have a separate action against the state for complicity in my parents’ murders.

I do not need to be rung up by a self proclaimed “loyalist” to be reminded of my responsibilities.

The tragedy is that republicans will continue to get away with it and all the posturing by Willy Frazer, if he is genuine,  is to naught.

UCBTs, another PSNI shambles

The Historical Enquiries Team told me in 2008 that “whenever a device failed to detonate it would be examined by Army Technical Officer’s [sic] and by this means ‘technically’ linked to other devices…There is no specific reference in the available case papers detailing any linkage between the UCBT used in the murder of your parents and other devices recovered during this period.”

Note there is no mention of forensic scientists.

In May 2014, I asked the Chief Constable  [among other things] :

1. What did the examination of the surviving bombs reveal?

2. Are the component parts of these bombs still available for evidential purposes?

3. What DNA has or could be extracted from these items?

ACC Harris [as he then was] replied in August 2014 as follows:

“The HET report made reference to fifteen UCBT type devices being defused. Although the SCRT review has led to the identification of potential forensic opportunities in respect of these devices, a senior scientist has concluded that although the bombs were similar in their makeup, they had subtle differences and could not be attributed to a single bomb maker.”

I asked Forensic Science NI for a copy of the report. Their reply was that :

“FSNI examined a number of devices during the period 1990 to 1992 however these were not correlated into any single report that we hold or have access to in our files.”

I served a freedom of information request on the PSNI on 13th November 2014. After much delay, it turns out that there is no report. Police now say that there was a verbal discussion with the HET during July 2014. They then go on , later in their reply to me to say this :

“there is no written report from the senior scientist in the case papers or the material created or gathered by the HET. The senior scientist verbally briefed the SIO and did not produce a written report or record notes of the verbal comments.”

So, dear reader, there you have it. Fourteen years after the murders , a senior police officer has a “verbal discussion” with a “senior scientist”. The latter has no written report and the former, disgracefully in respect of such an important matter, makes no notes whatsoever.

It’s hard not to come to the conclusion that police operations are populated with clowns and that senior officers would tell you anything.

Of course the alternative explanation is that they have been told not to try too hard.

Whichever way it is , the pain and grief that this  disgraceful behaviour causes victims is beyond words.

Under car booby trap bombs

Anyone who has been affected by one of these might be interested in this “nugget” from the Historical Enquiries Team.

“The intelligence picture showed there was a high degree of expertise within the Provisional IRA vested in an extremely small number of people. When the police identified those individuals they were subject of [sic] intensive operations to target and disrupt their activities.”

You might think, dear reader, that having been “identified” they might have been brought to court for their activities.

Not so. Why? Well perhaps they were informants. I have not yet been shown the “intelligence picture” but I’m working on it.

PSNI and failed investigations

The items recovered from the scene of the murders of my parents have been disposed of.

Is that a shocking statement? You might think so.

The police cannot tell me when they were disposed of, why and on whose orders.

The items  are therefore not available for testing by techniques which were used as far back as 1998.

Of course, if the bombers were State agents, it would be inconvenient to have their DNA found on the bomb.

I have written ,again, to the Chief Constable, requesting an explanation.

If the Protestant/Unionist/loyalist faction have not got the message yet [ yes and you too Willy!] let me spell it out.

The State is protecting a swathe of terrorists , republican and loyalist, for the greater good of the “peace process”. The “Crown” is not our friend, any more than it is the enemy of republicans.

Good people like my parents were sacrificed because the State deemed it appropriate.

There are hundreds of similar families suffering. For example the “human bomb” families of Derry, operations ordered by McGuinness.

I will share the Chief Constable’s response.

Next time- the UCBT teams, what the police knew and what they did about them.

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-how they treat historical murders

Readers may recall that I began correspondence with police in October 2002. Having been passed from one ACC to another, I finally met two senior detectives at Antrim Road police station on 4th March 2003. The following points emerged:

1. The investigation file had been stored.

2. No officer was even nominally in charge of the investigation.

3. They could not tell me when the investigation had been abandoned, who the last investigating officer had been and on whose authority the investigation had been abandoned.

I wrote [again] to the Chief Constable and finally , on 28th May 2003, twenty months after my first letter, Hugh Orde replied. He told me that they were in the process of setting up a serious crime review team. He promised that his staff would write to me again when matters were clarified.

It will come as no surprise for readers to learn that I received no reply until I wrote again in December. I was told that the Chief Constable had asked ACC KInkaid to write to me.

He did not contact me until March 2004, ten months after Orde had promised a response.

Bear in mind, dear reader, that the file had been stored for an unknown period of time and there was no officer responsible for any current investigation.

Here is what ACC Kinkaid said:

“Although not currently active, the investigation has remained open and subject to further attention should new information or developments arise”.

No doubt in the same category are the Jack the Ripper murders.

So, the moral of this story is that those of you who have lost loved ones in sectarian murders can be assured that the PSNI, even though your file is in a box in a warehouse, are ever watchful for new information or developments, falling from the skies into their laps.

Next time. What the Serious Crime Review Team told me.

PSNI incompetence

Readers may recall that Ed Moloney took issue with the assertion by ACCs Harris and Kerr that they had spoken to him “previously” about his book “A secret History of the IRA”. A month has passed since I asked the Chief Constable to explain what is at least a contradiction. How long does it take either to provide some proof of contact with Mr Moloney or to apologise?

PSNI, their failure to care

Readers will know that my parents were murdered in June 1990. In October 2002 I wrote to the Chief Constable, pointing out that in the intervening years, I had had no contact of any sort with any officer in charge of the investigation. It took a further letter in January 2003 to prise a response out of the Chief Constable. He first nodded the ball, through Supt Harris [yes it is he!] to ACC McQuillan, known [affectionately?] by his colleagues as “the salad dodger”. He failed to reply. Supt Harris then passed the buck to ACC Hunter. She apologised for the delay in reply and for the failure to liaise over the past twelve years. She was unable to explain the failures because ‘senior members of the team…have ended their police careers.”

Two matters arise.

1. I am sure my experience is replicated many times over with other families.

2. What prevents the PSNI from contacting retired officers to discuss such matters? They are, after all, in receipt of substantial pensions from the public purse.

Next time: when is an investigation not an investigation?

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.