UK government 'shortchanging North's murder probes'

The British government was accused today of failing to deliver on a pledge to fund an investigative unit re-examining murders from the North’s Troubles.

Dave Cox, head of the Historical Enquiries Team, revealed that last year’s funding, worth £4m, had to come out of Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) chief constable Hugh Orde’s policing budget, even though the British government promised two years ago that it would provide £32m for the work over six years.

But as Northern Ireland Office officials prepared a stock-take of the HET, Mr Cox vowed the review of 3,268 murders between 1969 and 1998 would go on even if it had to be funded from the existing PSNI budget.

“There’s been a lot of publicity about a stock-taking of the HET process and that’s fine,” Mr Cox said.

“We’re up for being audited and we’re up for justifying what we do because we believe it is a very valuable process.

“But the message this sends out to families is: ’Are you going to pull the process then? Is it going to stop? I am on the chronological list and they are not going to get to me for another couple of years. Does that mean they are going to change their mind and after all these promises they won’t come?’

“The chief (Orde) has been very upfront about all this and I will as well. We will get around to all the families because the chief has told me if the NIO do not fund us, he will.

“The point is we are almost back to square one as far as the PSNI budget is concerned. You have the demands of current policing on the chief’s day-to-day budget, which is why the (NIO-backed) project fund was set up for HET.

“If the money the chief has for current policing is diverted to policing the past, then that has a big impact on his planning.”

In March 2005, then Northern Secretary Paul Murphy earmarked more than £24m for the unit, which was the brainchild of Orde, and almost £8m for forensic scientists assisting its work.

A team of 100 investigators have so far worked on 700 cases and completed 262, working closely with the families of those killed.

However, with former Church of Ireland Primate Lord Eames and ex-Northern Ireland Policing Board vice chairman Denis Bradley heading up a review into how the province can best address the past, concerns are mounting among some families that the British government may be preparing to wind down the HET.

Bernard Moane, whose father, Benny, was abducted in Belfast and murdered by loyalists at a war monument outside Carrickfergus in May 1972, today backed calls for the Government to honour its original funding pledge.

Mr Moane, whose father’s murder was reviewed by the team between last October and June, told PA: “There have been certain rumours going around about whether the HET should continue or not or whether there is enough money to enable it to continue or not.

“In my view if the Government can afford to spend well over £100m on the Bloody Sunday inquiry, then I do not see why they cannot find additional money or enough money, sufficient resources for the HET to deliver on what they were asked to do in their initial brief.”

As he prepared to meet NIO officials, Mr Cox said a lot could be learned by the Eames and Bradley review from the HET.

“Our experience to date has been that it’s the people who suffered and lost in the Troubles are the people who should first be consulted,” he said.

“We devised our process tailored around our interaction with the families, asking them ’What is it you want to know?’

“Any process devised by Bradley and Eames or whoever, if it doesn’t start by asking the families what they want out of this and end up by delivering what they need, then in my view that will be a waste of money because you have got to go to the people who are suffering.

“We have started work in 700 cases and that means we have got at least a prospect that within a relatively defined period of time they will have some answers about what happened to their loved ones.

“It is not like these massive public inquiries which sit months and months taking evidence and then their considerations take years after that. We are a much more refined process than that.

“We looked at our set disciplines and try and answer the families’ questions. In many cases they are not actually about who pulled the trigger but are much more personal queries.”

A Northern Ireland Office spokesman insisted the PSNI had not lost out on any funding, even though the HET money had come out of its budget.

“The total budget for the entire HET project is £34m,” he revealed.

“At the end of the financial year 06/07 the total spend for the project was £9.5m, of which the PSNI spend was £8.13m.

“During the 06/07 financial year the PSNI spend was £4.18m, which was met from the overall PSNI budget and has been deducted from the £34m allocated to the HET project.”