PSNI to hand over shoot-to-kill secrets
Police in Northern Ireland are to comply with a court order to hand over top secret reports on an alleged officer shoot-to-kill policy during the Troubles, a senior commander has revealed.
While the PSNI is still seeking clarification on how much of the controversial Stalker and Sampson documents must be disclosed, Assistant Chief Constable Drew Harris said the service would not go against the direction of the region’s senior coroner John Leckey.
In September Mr Leckey gave new Chief Constable Matt Baggott until next Monday – November 9th – to release the never published reports to the Coroner’s Court to assist his probe into the Royal Ulster Constabulary killings of six men in late 1982.
He issued the deadline in the face of long-standing police refusal to hand them to the courts.
On Thursday Mr Harris told the PSNI’s oversight body – the NI Policing Board – that the service would not ignore its responsibility to the inquests.
“Of course we will comply with the coroner’s direction but there are specific issues that we wish to address in respect of disclosure and the information that is being sought,” he said.
“That is ongoing work and I think we will have some clarity around this on the November 9th, but certainly we will comply with the coroner’s direction and our responsibility to the coroner’s court in respect of this inquest.”
The alleged shoot-to-kill operations were carried out in the Co Armagh area in the weeks following the murders of three RUC officers in an IRA landmine.
They refer to three separate incidents:
- the shooting dead of IRA men Gervaise McKerr, Eugene Toman and Sean Burns in Lurgan on November 11 1982.
- the shooting of Catholic teenager Michael Tighe near Craigavon on November 24 1982.
- the killings of INLA suspects Seamus Grew and Roddy Carroll near Armagh city on December 12 1982.
The investigation into whether the police set out to kill was conducted by former Greater Manchester Police Deputy Chief Constable John Stalker and Sir Colin Sampson of the West Yorkshire Police.
While Mr Leckey has been given sight of their subsequent reports, he ordered that they were made available to the court so the inquests can finally get under way.
The coroner said the Chief Constable could make redactions if he considered them necessary and that he would then examine whether there were grounds to request the disclosure of further details ahead of another preliminary hearing on November 23rd.
SDLP Policing Board member Alex Attwood welcomed Mr Harris’s pledge to comply with the order.
“It is a welcome principle that documents that do throw light upon the past become more widely available,” he said.
“They may be redacted, they may be amended, but the principle nonetheless is a welcome one and I welcome the police accepting that principle.”
