Al Hutchinson should resign now

DAMNING REPORT OF POLICE OMBUDSMAN’S OFFICE | ‘COLLUSION’ BECOMES ‘INVESTIGATIVE BIAS’

BY PEADAR WHELAN

Al Hutchinson: On his way out

» BY PEADAR WHELAN

POLICE OMBUDSMAN Al Hutchinson should go and go now, Sinn Féin Policing and Justice spokesperson Gerry Kelly MLA said after yet another report damned his leadership of the Police Ombudsman’s office in the Six Counties.
Hutchinson’s contract has three more years to run but he told a meeting of the Assembly’s Justice Committee on 8th September that he has informed Justice Minister David Ford he will leave on 1st June next year.
The Criminal Justice Inspectorate (CJI) report, released on Monday 5th September, found that the independence of the Ombudsman’s office “had been lowered by its handing of historical cases”.
And while allegations were not proven that Mr Hutchinson signed a written assurance that his office would not mention Special Branch in any of its reports, Dr Michael Maguire’s CJI report did find that “no logical explanation as to why certain Ombudsman investigations were altered at a senior level just prior to publication”.
It was clear from his first days in office in November 2007 that Hutchinson would take a different tack than that of his predecessor, Nuala O’Loan.
O’Loan’s reputation as someone who refused to bow to pressure and toe the Establishment line established the independence of the Ombudsman’s office and brought her into conflict with such senior RUC figures as Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan.
Hutchinson, as a former Canadian ‘Mountie’, was seen to be ‘the policeman’s policeman’.
It was also clear from the beginning of his time at the helm that Hutchinson had a different interpretation to many others — including judges and legal experts — of collusion between the RUC and loyalist death squads.
He drew criticism from the families of those killed in the 1971 McGurk’s Bar bombing in north Belfast, where he saw “investigative bias” rather then collusion.
Likewise, the report into the killings of six Catholic men in The Heights Bar, Loughinisland, County Down, avoids the word collusion and any mention of the Special Branch. This provoked anger amongst the families of the dead and wounded.
The resignation earlier this year of Sam Pollock as Chief Executive of the Ombudsman’s office further undermined its credibility. Pollock accused the NIO of trying to interfere in investigations, thus compromising the Ombudsman’s office.
Sinn Féin is demanding that Hutchinson resign immediately.
Gerry Kelly said that confidence in Hutchinson “is at rock bottom”.
“This is the third critical report into the Ombudsman’s Office and it is an indictment of the leadership that Al Hutchinson has shown.
“Sinn Féin believes in the Ombudsman’s Office and that it is a crucial mechanism to make sure we have accountable policing. However, with the independence of the office being yet again called into question the credibility of that office is at rock bottom.
“The buck stops with Al Hutchinson and for public confidence in the Ombudsman’s Office to be repaired, he needs to go and go now.”