THAT unforgettable image of a face consumed by hatred, yelling abuse, is probably what will keep the latest revelation of collusion from slipping out of sight again.
Last week’s report from the Police Ombudsman properly withheld identification, as did Marie Anderson herself in interviews, but facts uncovered about police use of murderous informants will not be obscured again.
The report began as investigation into complaints by 19 families, now vindicated. There will be action in court.
The results had to fight for sustained media attention and the Sunday Independent’s boastful Northern Ireland edition found no space for the ombudsman. The News Letter ran a story pretty well represented by a headline quoting Jolene Bunting, DUP representative on the Policing Board: 'Ombudsman’s report findings "not backed up by robust evidence".'
There was certainly competition: ruthless Tories swithering over when to purge shamed but shameless Boris Johnson; a crude Northern Ireland Office move generally seen as Jeffreymandering. And this British government is probably not to be embarrassed out of pushing through legislation that stops further investigation and prosecution of security forces' crime during the Troubles.
But the stains will not go away. A long time in the making, this report was no sensationalist production. Make your way to Page 336 of 336 pages for a cool recap, where ‘Conclusions’ lists ‘Failures’ in use and management of ‘high risk informants, suspected of being involved in serious criminality, including murder’; ‘turning a blind eye to apparent criminal activity’; and the continued use of an informant suspected of involvement in murder.
The very last paragraph points to the task in the PSNI inbox of investigating evidence connecting ‘an individual to several murders and attempted murders in this series'. Which the Ombudsman passed to them in 2016. But in answer to repeated questions as to their progress, the report says the PSNI has ‘indicated’ that investigation is ‘subject to their prioritisation and sequencing model for historic investigation’.
‘Revision’ used to mean getting ready for exams. In some minds it’s also readying history for innocent descendants, polishing up the past. If people would research for themselves, couldn’t they find the facts and make up their own minds? It all depends where they look. Beavers have been beavering for decades, some with consciences, some without. Websites and blogs and the minute-by-minute ping of tweets pour into the daily ‘record’ that isn’t a record.
Fighting off the meaning of collusion and narrowing it down is a fixation for former police and soldiers and some at least of those set in authority over them. Marie Anderson, quoting legal terminology from the last challenge to her office, carefully calls it ‘collusive behaviour’.
There is Sinn Féin interest in estimating levels of collusion as very high - presumably in the belief that will diminish the IRA’s responsibility for deaths in the eyes of the next generation, history as revised. But the IRA share of guilt will remain the biggest share. Death tolls cannot be revised out of existence.
Except where it can be suggested that the collusion was between republicans and security forces, there is stolid determination on the part of unionists to talk it down. And the PSNI, successor force to the RUC, has not yet found a steady line to stand on. Their reaction to the last Police Ombudsman report that pointed to collusion produced what looked very much like sustained harassment of the Loughinisland documentary-makers, never otherwise justified, eventually slapped down in court.
The trouble remains that these were not the first troubles. Those of the twenties and the thirties left bad scarring. The twenties, crassly highlighted last year as the foundation years of the state, saw a paramilitary police force come into being partially built on the UVF, and partly tasked to defend the new Northern Ireland against the IRA. Catholics in 1969 could not trust the largely Protestant police of their day.
Today’s police chiefs, and others, need history lessons.
