PSNI can't cope with demand, says Orde

Police in Northern Ireland are reaching a point where they cannot cope with demands to re-open unsolved murders from the North's troubled history, the force’s chief constable said today.

Hugh Orde said there was a “growing demand” for the reinvestigation of historic cases. There are around 1,800 unsolved murders from the 30-year troubles.

Mr Orde told The Guardian: “Tension is building to such a point that I think we are reaching a crisis.

“The harsh reality is that I am not funded to reinvestigate history, I am funded to police the present.

“We have to come up with some form of closure that may not include a judicial process.”

He said that “simply expecting formal evidence-driven police investigations” to satisfy victims’ families “is not going to work”.

Following disquiet at the amount spent on the Bloody Sunday tribunal into the deaths of 14 people shot by the army, Northern Ireland Policing Board chairman Prof Desmond Rea suggested last week that all murders should be addressed by a Truth Commission instead of inquiries for specific cases

A report by retired Canadian judge Peter Cory has recommended that the British government conduct further public inquiries into four murders which may have involved collusion.

Solicitor Pat Finucane was gunned down in his north Belfast home in February 1989, Portadown Catholic Robert Hamill was killed by a Loyalist mob in 1997, Loyalist Volunteer Force leader Billy Wright was shot dead in the high security Maze Prison in December 1997 by the Irish National Liberation Army and solicitor Rosemary Nelson was murdered in Lurgan in March 1999.

Mr Orde said: “The question has to be asked whether £150m going to lawyers is the best way of bringing satisfaction to the families.

“Do public inquiries bring satisfaction to families?”