Group wants phone-tap evidence used in court

Phone-tap evidence that could have seen scores of terrorists convicted in the North should be allowed, a human rights group said today.

Legal reform group Justice claimed the bar on intercept evidence had damaged the UK’s reputation for upholding the rule of law.

Justice’s Eric Metcalfe said: “Intercept evidence isn’t a silver bullet but it is a bullet nonetheless.

“Rather than rely on control orders the government should give prosecutors the ammunition they need to prosecute suspected terrorists in the criminal courts.”

PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde has said evidence may be acceptable in some cases.

He said the majority of chief constables regarded the evidence as too complicated to admit and added it would need substantial judicial oversight.

Justice has analysed how intercept evidence was dealt with by seven other countries including the US and Australia and found the UK was the only country to outlaw it completely.

Legal measures barring publicity and requiring court hearings to take place in private are used in other countries to protect sensitive intelligence material.

The security services, including British government listening post GCHQ, are thought to oppose the move because it would risk revealing their spying techniques and capabilities.

Intercept evidence gathered in the UK, including telephone, email and postal material, is not allowed in court cases, although material from other countries is admissible.

The report said: “This ban is archaic, unnecessary and counter-productive.

“It prevents police and prosecutors from putting forward compelling evidence of guilt in many criminal cases.

“Lifting the ban would help to mend the UK’s damaged reputation for upholding the rule of law and protecting fundamental rights.

“It would enable suspected terrorists to be prosecuted using the criminal law, rather than rely on such exceptional measures as control orders and indefinite detention without trial.”

Authorisation to carry out intercepts should also be issued by a judge rather than the British home secretary, it added.

West Belfast lobby group Relatives for Justice said Northern Ireland was not ready for the controversial technique.

Spokesman Mark Thompson said: “We have come through some of the worst human rights abuses in Northern Ireland and we have had questionable practices in the past.

“When you are in a political situation which has had all this abuse the last thing you need is to introduce these new powers.”

Willie Fraser from Protestant victims’ group FAIR said phone-tap evidence should be used against terrorists.

“With the rise in international terrorism it is more important that they bring these people to court and they should use whatever they can against them,” he said.

“These could be vital weapons in the fight against terror and it is important that the forces of law and order use every tool possible.”

Lifting the ban was recommended by an influential committee of Privy Counsellors chaired by Lord Newton as long ago as December 2003.

British Attorney General Lord Goldsmith and Director of Public Prosecutions Ken Macdonald have also called for use of intercept.

In August, the Commons’ all-party Joint Committee on Human Rights largely rejected the idea of moving towards the continental system of investigative magistrates to bring terror cases, a proposal strongly mooted by former British home secretary Charles Clarke as an alternative to the adversarial system traditionally used in British courts.

However, it said the authorities should urgently look at ways of relaxing the ban on intercept evidence.

Last November, a British government spying watchdog said the move would be “damaging” to the work of MI5, MI6 and the police.

Interception of Communications Commissioner Sir Swinton Thomas, who is responsible for overseeing the way police and spies carry out intercepts, said in his annual report: “I am left in no doubt that the balance falls firmly against any change in the present law and that any amendment…would, overall, be damaging to the work of the security, intelligence and law-enforcement agencies.”

Today’s 75-page report also looks at two other common-law jurisdictions and reports that intercept evidence was technically admissible in the Republic of Ireland but was not actually used in criminal prosecutions, while Hong Kong allowed postal intercepts.