Opinion

Jim Gibney: After Ormeau Road debacle, public confidence in the police needs to be restored

Mark Sykes at the memorial to the victims of the Sean Graham's massacre on the Ormeau Road in south Belfast. Picture by Hugh Russell.
Mark Sykes at the memorial to the victims of the Sean Graham's massacre on the Ormeau Road in south Belfast. Picture by Hugh Russell. Mark Sykes at the memorial to the victims of the Sean Graham's massacre on the Ormeau Road in south Belfast. Picture by Hugh Russell.

Cold fury gripped the nationalist and republican people as we watched in shock and disbelief as police officers confronted the grieving relatives of those who were massacred in Sean Graham’s Bookmakers shop on the Ormeau Rd in February 1992.

Mark Thompson, director of ‘Relatives for Justice’, sent me a video recording of the incident, practically as it was happening, and my immediate thoughts were - why is Mark sending me old film footage of the RUC?

It took me a few minutes to realise it was not the RUC but in fact the PSNI – the police service that I and many other republicans and nationalists turned ourselves and others inside out, to support.

Rage raced through me. I wanted to rush to the Ormeau Road, as I have done many times before, when this much-attacked community was under siege, and stand with them again in their hour of need.

But Covid regulations put a brake on my emotional instincts and I calmed myself down by contacting friends, who like me were furious.

Every time I looked at the video, I had flashbacks of the media coverage from the mass murder scene in February 1992.

In February 1992 people were visibly distressed by the violence and loss of life – they were again visibly distressed in February 2021 by the actions of the police.

What was particularly shocking and alarming was the age of the police officers involved in the confrontation with relatives and the manner in which they pursued them and in particular Mark Sykes.

Their behaviour is incomprehensible given the changes we were told took place in the changeover from the RUC to the ‘modern, human rights compliant’ PSNI.

But where is the human rights training and awareness when the police pursue relatives seeking comfort and solace in their faith and the memory of their murdered loved ones?

Where was the human rights training in the treatment of Mark Sykes, particularly in police custody?

Mark is in his mid-50s. He is highly respected in his community. He narrowly survived the massacre in which his 18-year-old brother-in-law Peter Magee died with Jack Duffin (66), William McManus (54) Christy Doherty (52), James Kennedy (15), with a number of others shot and wounded.

Mark Sykes carries the physical scars of the massacre. He has a bullet in his chest, close to his heart which cannot be removed and gunshot wounds on his upper arms caused when he protected his head from the gunman.

Mark posed no threat to anyone.

He was forcibly arrested, manacled with two sets of handcuffs and placed for 90 painful and agonising minutes in a cramped and confined space in the back seat of a police car.

Against his will he was trapped unable to move in the back of the car, windows closed, in the precincts of Musgrave Street barracks.

Against his will he was driven around Belfast city centre.

The police did not speak to him or ease his distress by removing the manacles; the atmosphere was one of silent intimidation and fear.

How could the police have this unbridled power over a defenceless manacled prisoner?

There is a long-established, paper-trail-based arrest procedure where the arrested person’s every movement is watched and documented from the point of arrest to the point of release or detention.

This was spectacularly breached in the case of Mark Sykes.

Did any police officer make an enquiry about his whereabouts for the 90 minutes?

Did the police area commander intervene?

At the heart of this entire episode lies disrespect by the police, at all levels, for the community of the Lower Ormeau and by extension the entire nationalist community.

The hurt and pain caused to relatives is compounded by the inexplicable delay in publishing the Ombudsman’s report into the Sean Graham massacre.

This needs to be published immediately.

And speedy measures need to be taken to restore shattered public confidence in the police.

A good start would be to remove legacy from the police’s remit – because it more than any other issue is destroying any hope of a new beginning to police in the north.