Much is said about victims. We have a Commissioner for them. She has an office and staff. This costs us about £1,000,000 each year. I have never sought help from them. Why, I hear you say Dear Reader, am I blogging about this, especially on an Ulster summer day? For this reason. Occasionally in the battle for compensation from Libya, a battle won for their citizens by the USA, Italy,France and Germany but disgracefully lost by Perfidious Albion.I have found myself writing about “victims” as if I am one. Also, more than one person has said “you’re forever portraying yourself as a victim”. So I’ve decided to think about what I am. To begin. Not a day goes by when I don’t think about my parents. I’m sure I’m not alone in that. I’m a citizen of the United Kingdom. That gives me rights and responsibilities. I contend that the murders of my parents didn’t take place in a vacuum. They happened when the State had so penetrated the terrorists and so perverted justice that not only did one arm know who killed my parents but at a meeting on the Shankill Road another arm, the RUC , gave the UDA a name and the UFF set out to kill him the night my mother died. He was Sean Keenan, a well known Republican from Riverdale Park South. He survived, as he did when he was shot in 1984, along with Adams. So perhaps I am a vengeful angry citizen. I represented the Crown in court for twenty five years. How many times did the state deceive me and the court? But wait! In some respects I am a victim and I shouldn’t shy away. I’m a victim of people who should have been at my parents’ funeral and weren’t, I’m thinking of a particular grandson. I’m a victim of a spouse whose only solution was to hand me a glass of wine so that she was not bothered by my problems. I’m a victim of the Bar Library which never enquired into my well being for twenty five years until I got into trouble , then briefed Frazer Elliott , that icy cold , presbyterian, paragon of virtue to prosecute me. Not unexpected in that cold house for unionists. I’m a victim of senior police officers who continue to lie to me about what intelligence exists. I’m a victim of the many people who tell me to “get over it” or that it is “a legacy issue” or that “we need to move on”. I’m a victim of those erstwhile friends and colleagues who say “the grief has got to him” and pass by on the other side of the street.I’m a victim of the State which is just passing time until I , and others like me, pass on. So here I stand. A victim. But that is different from victimhood. My daughter criticises me for “not taking responsibility for myself” . An interesting accusation. Instead I’ve taken the responsibility of the fight for justice. I don’t regret that, nor what it has cost me [ my career, my house my family] , nor what the future holds. I can now go several days without seeing or talking to a soul. At the last I hope , though, that some will see me as a son who tried his best for his parents. Franz Schubert said:” Every night when I go to bed , I hope that I may never wake again and every morning renews my grief.”
ruc
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?
The HIA Inquiry
One of the enduring allegations of the last forty years has been that the state’s security agencies have been complicit in the sexual abuse , and possibly the murder of children. Kincora is the outstanding example but maybe not the only instance. In GB a major inquiry is about to start. It will not deal with Kincora. So , what next? The inquiry in Banbridge, chaired by Tony Hart, has been lumbering on for months. If you think that it is going to cut a swathe through the state , think again. Allegations have already been made against “prominent members of the community” , his words, not mine. The result? Anonymity orders. You are not allowed to know who these people are. This , despite social media naming one such person, an elected public representative, frequently. What is the point of these King Canute orders? “BP” , who says that she is a victim of this public representative , and is badly affected by something, wanted legal aid to pursue her complaint against one of these “prominent members” The court of appeal has refused her assistance. Would the decision have been different if the accused was not a “prominent member of the community” but Fred Bloggs? The smell from this is awful. if you think that there is the remotest chance of the Hart Inquiry getting anywhere near the truth, read sections 10 and 22 of the Act, which created the Inquiry. The state ensured, before a witness was called that it was protected. Beating up dead priests is just an obscene sideshow. Shame on all those who are participating in this farce.
James Carrick Annette Sefton, an appreciation
James was born on 25 February 1925, the second son of William and Cissie Sefton.
He left school at fourteen and was , like many of his contemporaries, apprenticed in Harland and Wolff.
Despite being good at maths he was in love with literature and history. He read three books each week, borrowed from Shankill Road public library.
When I was eight, he took me there and signed me up. We went to the childrens’ section. “Here is a book you might like”. It was a Tale of Two Cities. I remember taking it home and reading the opening lines. How inspirational is that for any boy?
James wanted to be a teacher but his circumstances did not permit.
He was always smart and well turned out and eventually found his way into the RUC.
Not your usual officer, he completed a crossword every day and counted Paddy Devlin amongst his friends. That friendship may not be surprising in that James was a socialist and Paddy was born a few streets away.
Never an unthinking loyalist, he used to take amusement in observing that the Orangemen were having their ‘ annual’ church visit,
He married my mother , Ellen, a beauty and rich , and a year older than him in 1949. That must have made his friends jealous.
They were in love right to the end.
They represented all that was good about Northern Ireland in those years that many observers have rubbished. They had honeymooned in Dublin [ where I was made] and visited the Republic regularly.
James had a dry sense of humour that could convey a concept. I remember reading out my letter of offer of a place to read law at QUB, at the breakfast table.
His reply was “anyone who gets a university place and fails should be shot” That got my attention and is probably explained by his wish to have been a teacher.
When I explained that I was prosecuting my first historic sex abuse trial, he remarked that “those people steal childrens’ childhoods”. It was the first time I really understood abuse.
James served uncomplainingly in B division for many years.
The rector of St Matthew’s, with whom he loved to debate , said of him and my mother; “they were ordinary decent caring people…[James] was not the sort of man to talk about politics, he was a tolerant sort of individual who didn’t hold any unyielding views”
I still hold the memory of him going out on night duty , after the Anglo Irish Agreement, when he was more likely to be attacked by loyalists.
I never told him how much I loved him.
I know that I am not alone in my loss and that many people suffered more than I did.
But he was my Dad, the bravest man I ever knew and I’m only half the man he was.
Wheels within wheels
Liam Clarke, in his article in the Belfast Telegraph on 18 June says: “the Castlereagh raid allowed the IRA to identify the entire agent network in Belfast through a process of elimination.”
It is interesting that this observation, relating to events which occurred in 2002, passed without apparent comment in the media.
Was the “raid” in fact a hostile act by a devilishly cunning SF/IRA unit or was it staged? Was the insider in fact Larry the Chef, a state agent, and was the object of the state to further destabilise SF/IRA?
Larry was never prosecuted, a decision made jointly by the police, who took him out of the jurisdiction and the PPS.
Guess who was asked to investigate? A man call Chilcott.
Could Barney Rowan help?
Imagine the scene at the army council when the product of the raid was tabled. “Gerry, I never knew….you too Marty….gosh and you , and you”. It is unlikely that anyone on the army council failed to make the grade.
So why the silence both from the media and from SF/IRA?
It’s the Peace Process Stupid!
Twenty five years ago, a running commentary
So, having been told, in court, by Alan White, Deputy Director DPP, as it then was, of the bombing, I made my way to the RVH. My Dad was dead and it was a question of finding my Mum and ascertaining her condition. There was confusion as to where she was but I found her eventually. She was under the care of Dr Coppell [a ex BRA boy ] and his excellent team. I was then taken from the RVH to the morgue , under the care of Gerry Sillery an old Forth River class mate and sub divisional commander for B division. I identified my Dad, having been warned not to touch him, for forensic reasons.
I returned to the RVH and to my terminally ill mother.
In the middle of the night I was sitting in a quiet area of the RVH, trying to gather my thoughts. A figure in a track suit approached. It was Denis Maloney, solicitor. He had been trying to find me. That gesture was immensely comforting. He had lost his parents in the British Midland crash the previous year. His parents’ grave is not far from my parents. Today, as usual, I left two red roses on my parents’ grave , then visited the Maloney grave.
So ended 6th June 1990.
I’m not by any means a special case but I hope that by publishing this discourse I will draw attention to the horrors which people suffered in these cases.
It is striking to me how many people came to my aid and probably how few ever thought that the state was complicit.
I have spoken to a number of ex RUC officers over the last year and every one has disappeared. I wonder why?
I notice also that there is a RUC GC service in St Marks in Newtownards tomorrow. I wonder why I don’t get an invite?
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!
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.
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.
Queens University and Charlie Hebdo
I have fond memories of Queens University Law Faculty in the sixties. Good colleagues, Arthur Moir, Des Marrinan, Martin Blake, Arthur Harvey, Nigel Barr, David Smyth and many others. Great staff. World class. Sheridan, Twining, Palley, Wylie, Calvert and many others, even David Trimble and Geoff Foote!
Who can forget the magnolias flowering on University Square and the Club Bar? Grants?
Academia as it will never be again.
Now the management that brought you a ban on the National Anthem and the RUC band bring you a ban on free speech.
This is the university that boasts in a centre named after Bill Clinton. It welcomes Allstate, an institution rated in 2008 by the American Association for Justice as the worst insurer in the USA.
Professor Johnston the leader of QUB told Allstate’s leaders, “leadership is about courage, conviction and putting you second-not first” [I wonder who writes his stuff?]
There then followed mutual back slapping with Mr Gupta, an Allstate VP.
Is this a clue?
In any event, investment is safe and with it the obscene amounts of money paid to senior QUB staff.
Johnston showed great courage.
seftonblog 