THE INDEPENDENCE and effectiveness of Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman Al Hutchinson’s office has been questioned by the Belfast-based civil liberties group, the Committee on the Administration of Justice.
Mike Ritchie, director of the committee, said the office was “not fit for purpose” in terms of how it dealt with “historic” cases of the Troubles in their 56-page report which was published yesterday. Mr Hutchinson rejected the charge.
The committee stops short of calling for Mr Hutchinson to stand down from his £145,000 per annum position.
However, it demanded improvements in how his office investigated cases relating to the past.
“We are not calling for a boycott of the ombudsman but we want him to do his job better,” said Mr Ritchie.
The report, however, is bringing additional pressure on Mr Hutchinson whose office is already the subject of two other investigations. These arise from the decision of Sam Pollock, chief executive of the office, to quit his post in August. He complained that the independence of the office was undermined as a result of “meddling” by some senior Northern Ireland civil servants.
The ombudsman was embroiled in further controversy last July after he was compelled to withdraw his initial report into how the RUC investigated the 1971 UVF bombing of McGurk’s bar in north Belfast in which 15 people were killed and another 16 injured. That report came out in February.
Mick Beyers, policing programme officer at the civil liberties group, said it began its review of the ombudsman’s office last summer following “growing unease amongst families, victims, legal representatives and human rights groups” about how historic cases were handled.
The group said in the report it was concerned about the “current levels of efficiency” in relation to historic cases.
“The investigative process is agonisingly slow and it is often difficult to ascertain why the research requires such an extensive period to conduct,” it said.
The group also complained that there was no clear definition of what constituted police collusion.
It queried whether there was any gender bias in Mr Hutchinson being paid £20,000 more than his predecessor Nuala O’Loan.
