MacGill Summer School: The importance of proper accountability on the part of police forces was stressed by Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, Nuala O'Loan, at the opening of the 25th MacGill Summer School in Glenties, Co Donegal, yesterday.
"I do not need to rehearse the stories of policing in Donegal and in the North. We realise that there must be proper accountability for those on whom the state confers police powers. Accountability is critical for proper policing to flourish," said Ms O'Loan.
"This is not to suggest that all police officers are corrupt. That would be nonsense. Nor do I think that people become police officers because they will have extensive power over others. I firmly believe that most people who become police officers do so because they are motivated by the desire to protect life and property and to prevent crime.
"Something happens somewhere along the line, often to those who are the best police officers. Sometimes it is noble-cause corruption, the corruption which arises because people decide to do wrong things to achieve what they see as proper ends."
Delivering the fifth annual John Hume lecture, Ms O'Loan said that the well-documented collusive relationship between a few police officers in Northern Ireland and paramilitaries was the worst evidence of this.
"It is insidious and has an effect on all policing. Sometimes it is simply that management is sloppy and training is defective, and that the values which should dominate policing become forgotten," she added.
"Whatever it is, it enables the development of a culture which is at best destructive of policing, and at worst criminal."
She said police officers were the sworn guardians of the law. It was not easy either to interview a senior officer who had long years of experience in policing, who had the self-confidence which derived from that experience and who thoroughly resented being interviewed at all.
"This does happen. And yet it is in the interests, not just of the public, but also of the police, that those who do wrong are made accountable. A situation in which a police officer can commit a crime and continue to serve unchallenged is not sustainable.
"I have heard good police officers speak bitterly of those who have let the police service down and not been called to account."
There was no doubt, she said, that it could come as a shock when a police officer appeared in court. As Ombudsman, she had recommended the prosecution of 60 criminal charges against police officers. That should not undermine the rule of law, but what would undermine it was if that officer were not called to account.
Ms O'Loan referred to the case of a young officer who had reported a colleague for attacking a teenage girl who had been brought spitting and swearing into custody. He had slapped her repeatedly, and the young officer who reported the incident knew it was not right. The officer was convicted of the assault of his prisoner.
She said that three things must exist for those who sought to bring police to account: adequate statutory power, adequate funding and a determination in those charged with this function to do the job properly.
Her staff, she said, had extensive powers of arrest, search and seizure of documents and materials such as vehicles, guns, batons and police records. They had access to all police material, and material must be given to them if they decided they needed it.
"The right of access to national intelligence material has been critical to us in our ability to do our job," she added.
There was talk of failure in the intelligence services in the context of 9/11 in the United States, said Ms O'Loan, adding that there had been similar talk in London after the tragedies of July 7th.
"In my Omagh investigation, and in others, I have found failures of intelligence-handling and management, and the consequence of this appears to be that those who might have been made amenable for crime have not always been apprehended. They have remained at large to commit further serious crime," she added.
She said that the chief constable of the PSNI had ultimate responsibility for matters of national intelligence.
"That situation will probably change, but at the present national intelligence, no matter who gathers it, is held by the PSNI."
But the PSNI must also be impartial and independent, she said. "We must be evidence-based, not influenced by political expediency or any other cause," Ms O'Loan said.