The report of the RUC's handling of its investigation into alleged death threats by police officers against Rosemary Nelson details ill-disguised police hostility towards the murdered solicitor. The report deals with "a catalogue" of complaints against RUC officers and unprofessional conduct.
The Nelson family was presented yesterday with a report from the Independent Commission for Police Complaints (ICPC) outlining its views on how the investigation into the threats was conducted by the RUC and then by the London Metropolitan Police.
Having read the report the solicitor's husband, Paul, issued a statement calling for the murder investigation to be taken away from the RUC.
The ICPC, in its report, which The Irish Times has seen, found that the London Metropolitan Police did its job satisfactorily when it took over the investigation, but the RUC inquiry was unacceptable.
The report focuses on several criticisms, including:
Hostility to the investigation and to Ms Nelson.
Lack of police professionalism.
One officer turning up smelling of alcohol and continually saying Ms Nelson's co-complainant, Mr Colin Duffy, murdered two police officers, even though these charges against him were dropped.
Matters relevant to the allegations not being addressed, or addressed unsatisfactorily.
An RUC chief inspector having difficulty co-operating productively with the investigation, even though he was in charge of the day-to-day investigation.
The chief inspector making judgments on the "moral character" of Ms Nelson and others.
RUC mindset on the inquiry "bordering on the obstructive".
The document will prove highly embarrassing for the RUC. In particular it contains 16 complaints highlighted by Ms Geralyn McNally, a barrister with the ICPC, who supervised the inquiry into Ms Nelson's allegations. In all, allegations were made against 21 RUC officers.
The ICPC-supervised inquiry began in the summer of 1997 after Ms Nelson and one of her clients, a Lurgan republican, Mr Colin Duffy, complained of death threats issued against the solicitor by RUC officers while they were interviewing republican suspects.
Ms McNally approved the appointment of an RUC superintendent to head the inquiry. The superintendent was assisted by an RUC chief inspector who "undertook the day-to-day conduct of the investigation".
"Throughout the investigation the supervising member consistently raised concerns about the behaviour and attitudes displayed by police officers in the course of interviews. Ultimately she concluded that the accumulated effect of these shortcomings was such as to be seriously damaging to the credibility of the investigation itself," the ICPC report stated.
"Equally, the confidence that the complainants and others should rightly expect to have in the investigation of serious allegations concerning threats to a solicitor in the conduct of her professional duties was potentially severely undermined," it added.
The ICPC found the RUC investigation unacceptable for four main reasons. The first was because the chief inspector "appeared to have difficulty in co-operating productively" with Ms McNally, or, as the report states, with "the power and authority relationships which are an inherent facet of supervised investigations".
It found that the concerns Ms McNally raised were "either not addressed or addressed unsatisfactorily", and that "the apparent prompting of the police officers to have ready prepared statements in advance of interview undermined the possibility of full and candid responses to important questions".
The fourth point was: "The ill-disguised hostility to Mrs Nelson on the part of some police officers was indicative of a mindset which could be viewed as bordering on the obstructive."
The report contains an index of the 16 complaints raised by Ms McNally. "Each of these incidents taken in isolation would be unacceptable but not calculated to render the overall investigation severely flawed," the report stated.
"However, considered accumulatively they do add up to behaviour and attitudinal pre-dispositions which are both unacceptable and undermining."
Ms McNally noted a conflict of evidence over whether the chief inspector had advised an officer or officers to provide pre-interview statements. "In the report of the investigation drafted by the chief inspector he makes a number of assertions which constitute judgments on the moral character of Mrs Nelson and others," the report added.
The chief inspector, while initially describing Ms Nelson as a credible witness, subsequently "recorded that he in fact did harbour doubts about her reliability. This change of opinion appears to rest primarily on the difficulties that the chief inspector experienced in his efforts to arrange interviews with Mrs Nelson."
The ICPC report also stated: "Another senior officer, reporting on the investigating, coupled the quality of the evidence given by Mrs Nelson, a solicitor and officer of the court in good professional standing, with that of her clients, whose reliability was deemed by him to be unreliable. The evidence given by Mrs Nelson was seen as being `no better' than that given by her clients."
Based on such a series of concerns the ICPC, in the summer of last year, took the unprecedented step of contacting the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam, about its unhappiness with the RUC investigation. The RUC Chief Constable, Sir Ronnie Flanagan, was also notified. The RUC was removed from the inquiry and Sir Ronnie, with the approval of the ICPC, brought in Cmdr Niall Mulvihill, of the London Metropolitan Police, to head the investigation.
The ICPC was happy with his investigation. His findings, however, will only be disclosed if criminal proceedings are taken against police officers and these findings are detailed in court. It is for the DPP in the North to decide whether charges will follow from Cmdr Mulvihill's inquiry.
Ms Nelson's husband, Paul. said last night he was "dismayed" by the number of criticisms levelled by the ICPC against the RUC. "If the ICPC had no confidence in the ability of the RUC to investigate the death threats against Rosemary, how can my family be expected to have confidence in their ability or indeed their willingness to effectively investigate her murder?" Mr Nelson asked.