Readers' Blog: North’s police operated beyond control
The reaction to the incendiary remarks of the Northern Ireland secretary Karen Bradley who said that the killings by the British army and police during the Troubles were “not crimes” is extraordinarily naive.
In 1999 the disbandment of the RUC, the B Specials and the UDR, along with most of the 175 changes recommended in the Patten Report on policing which brought about the new PSNI, were implemented.
Patten proposed replacing a police force which had its roots in both the principles of a private army and local militias which had been the subject of investigations by the former Metropolitan Police Commissioner Sir John Stevens on claims of institutional collusion between the North’s police force and loyalist death squads.
Also covered was the Stalker/Sampson investigation into allegations of a shoot-to-kill policy engaged in by the RUC.
Both of these reports have been shelved as it was deemed “not in the national interest to make the contents public”. Clearly, this fuels suspicion of a police force which operated beyond control.
Effectively, the British government stood back and condoned a situation whereby the people of the North were policed by a force which would not be acceptable in England, Scotland, or Wales.
Patten came not a moment too soon.
