Program: GMU
Date & Time 9.6.05 (7.35)
Subject 13th report of Police Oversight Commissioner

SEAMUS MCKEE

The Police Oversight Commissioner says it is time for full community and political support for policing. Al Hutchinson is publishing his 13th report today. What you actually say is ‘all of the necessary institutions of governance, Policing Board, the Ombudsman, District Policing Partnerships, are working effectively and as intended. 

Northern Ireland’s policing institutions now need the full and unequivocal support of the whole community if the progress they have achieved to date is to continue and further opportunities are not to be lost’. Would people be right to interpret that as your strongest words to date on this issue of the need for full political involvement?

AL HUTCHINSON

You are correct. I have said that before. The difference this time is I am actually taking 114 recommendations off the table. There are in fact another 22 that are fully satisfactory, 61 remain. By taking it off I think I have shifted the focus, which should happen, back to politics and full community support.

SEAMUS MCKEE

People are interpreting it as you saying Sinn Fein need to sign up for policing reform and for the new policing here. There is no sign at present of them doing that.

AL HUTCHINSON

No well I am careful to stay out of politics and I try not to get back in with the statement, but I think the spotlight shifts not only to Sinn Fein but other parties to get back to the table…..

SEAMUS MCKEE

Which other parties?

AL HUTCHINSON

Well certainly on the unionist side, it is important to have a dialogue. It is important to remember what Patten was about. It was about the people on the street wanting a safe accountable representative police service. They don’t want stories of the crimes you report every morning. Every one of those is a victim and that is what an effective accountable police service is about. 

SEAMUS MCKEE

You bring us to the crimes we report every morning and this week we have been dealing in particular with crime in one part of Belfast, where the police say robberies are down, the traders say their experience is the exact opposite. Now you are saying in your report the gap between the actual reduction of recorded crime on the one hand and the public’s perception of growing crime on the other is emerging as a major concern. Now how is that a major concern to you?

AL HUTCHINSON

Well it is a concern I know that the Chief Constable has addressed himself. We keep talking about and hearing about recorded crime. Everyone of those victims out there does not believe that and I think it is important…..

SEAMUS MCKEE

Why don’t they believe it?

AL HUTCHINSON

I can’t answer for those individuals but I go back to full community representation and support in the political parties moving a process ahead that creates an accountable and a representative police service.

SEAMUS MCKEE

They don’t believe it possibly because they say they don’t see enough police officers on the ground. Now you are addressing that in some respects in your report. You talk about civilianization, because the police want increasing numbers of officers to be freed up from desk jobs and to be on the streets, and you say civilianization, first of all, ‘there are fewer police officers on patrol than there could have been’, why is that?

AL HUTCHINSON

Well I look at these as lost opportunities. I don’t want to cast any blame but I think people need to look at this within the organizations as lost opportunities. There can be more civilianization, I believe that, more of that is going to happen.

SEAMUS MCKEE

The pace is too slow?

AL HUTCHINSON

Too slow is one problem. There are increasing numbers of police officers on the street but, I see them myself every time I come to the Province and I think that is an important symbol. But those police have to be effective, they have to reduce crime.

SEAMUS MCKEE

Do you see increasing numbers in a way that you think would be effective in reducing crime or is it that you see them moving around in cars and not on the beat?

AL HUTCHINSON

It is a bit of both. I see a lot more on the beat. It is important you see them on bicycles, those women and men are dedicated to doing the job they have been hired to do. If the public does not believe that, that is the problem, that is back to the perception of crime.

SEAMUS MCKEE

You are still not happy that in civilianization that the numbers of civilians reflect the make up of the community as a whole?

AL HUTCHINSON

That is one of my disappointments that remains. The police are stuck at about 14%, the package of measures will not work. But again I go back to the major theme of this report is that involves the whole community to be supporting the police, viewing it as an honorable occupation in applying to join that policing…...

SEAMUS MCKEE

Other things you say will strike a cord, you talk about the appearance of police stations and you refer specifically to Musgrave Street in the center of Belfast. ‘The surrounding city area almost wholly transformed over the last 6 years, a new and vibrant development all around, this old fortified station lingers as an unsightly monument to the past.’ The very antithesis of the Independent Commission’s intentions.

AL HUTCHINSON

Absolutely what Patten talked about it in modernizing police stations was that they were representative of the communities, they were in the appropriate communities and that people could feel they were part of the community. I just pointed to Musgrave as that legacy of the past and it illustrates some of the problems not moving ahead.

SEAMUS MCKEE

Why is there such slow progress in defortifying other elements in the police who won’t accept change?

AL HUTCHINSON

No that is not the case at all. I think it is a matter of bureaucracy, people not wanting to close certain police stations. But you have to think about the men and women that also work in there, it is a health and safety issue, these things have to be changed.
 

Program: Hearts and Minds – Gerry Kelly, Alex Attwood
Date & Time 9.6.05 – 19.52
Subject 13th Report of the Police Oversight Commissioner

NOEL THOMPSON

The 13th report of the Policing Oversight Commissioner paints a positive picture of the PSNI and the implementation of the Patten proposals. In fact the Commissioner, Al Hutchinson, suggests that the biggest barrier to a representative police force is the threat of perception of intimidation of Catholic recruits. 

Gerry Kelly, the biggest obstacle is intimidation of Catholics by republicans presumably, what’s your response?

GERRY KELLY

Well republicans aren’t intimidating Catholics or anybody else. It’s interesting in your introduction because he also said that 61 out of the 175 recommendations were not fully implemented and that in a way, I would say, is a damning indictment to five years into the Oversight Commissioner’s role.

NOEL THOMPSON

…just not fully implemented?

GERRY KELLY

Well that means they are not implemented and we can argue over this. But the fact is that there is resistance to it which he also refers to, to the change that Patten envisaged and if you look back at the last three years, indeed people have to be worried over the type of political policing which has continued on through those years in terms of the Stormont raids, in terms of, I think even recently there was this case of (unclear), if you remember this was yet another accusation of a spy ring and now we find that there was absolutely nothing to it, yet the headlines at the time were that we were not fit for government etc, etc. So there is still a political policing going on, there is still some ways to go, but the matter is…

NOEL THOMPSON

…but it’s specifically to respond to that criticism of that allegation of intimidation. You’re saying it’s not happening either subliminally or in reality?

GERRY KELLY

Well what do you mean subliminally?

NOEL THOMPSON

Well because of your attitude perhaps to policing that people are afraid to go forward because of republican attitudes?

GERRY KELLY

It is interesting, Noel, because now it is intimidation because you have a particular view of policing. I mean are you intimidating me because you have a different view of me from policing, it’s absolutely ludicrous.

NOEL THOMPSON

So you’re saying there’s no intimidation of any kind of Catholic recruits?

GERRY KELLY

No I didn’t say that, I’m taking up your position.

NOEL THOMPSON

No I’m asking you to answer that question?

GERRY KELLY

No, no you asked me to deal with the subliminal comment that you made and…

NOEL THOMPSON

That was a secondary question, the main question is, is there any intimidation of any kind of Catholic recruits?

GERRY KELLY

Well I’m telling you as the spokesperson on policing and justice I am absolutely against any intimidation that might take place.

NOEL THOMPSON

That’s not saying whether it’s happening or not of course?

GERRY KELLY

Well I’m saying I’m against it you see.

NOEL THOMPSON

Whether or not it’s happening?

GERRY KELLY

Whether or not it’s happening I’m against it.

NOEL THOMPSON

But is it happening or is it not in your view?

GERRY KELLY

Well there are, and of course it has been happening, but you see you’re asking me…

NOEL THOMPSON

It has been happening, well that’s what I was trying to get you to say, yes or not, that’s fine.

GERRY KELLY

I know you’ve been trying to get me to say this, Noel, but you need to be hugely accurate in this. Are you making that accusation that in some way that Sinn Fein or republicans are involved in it because if you then I’m saying it’s not...

NOEL THOMPSON

(unclear) there has been intimidation, you have finally said yes there is. Let me turn to Alex Attwood to answer those points. Only 114 of the 175 recommendations have been implemented, it’s still going very slowly isn’t it?

ALEX ATTWOOD

Far from it, Patten said that the implementation of Patten would be a 10 year project, a 10 year project. What the Oversight Commissioner said today, in the biggest words possible, he said that the implementation of Patten are largely accomplished and what remains will be done in the next two years. 

Who would have thought on the hardest issue of our generation, that of policing, that there would be such change in such a short period of time? Far from it being not being implemented, it is now loud and clear to those who want to hear, and clearly Gerry doesn’t want to hear, Patten is being implemented, the resistance to change has not stopped (unclear) SDLP.

NOEL THOMPSON

But it also takes the concerns about MI5 taking over security gathering from Special Branch, for example, that’s something that’s going to need to be watched. So the politicization, as Gerry Kelly would call it, continues?

ALEX ATTWOOD

There’s no doubt that issues around MI5 need ultimate caution. It’s just a pity that six months ago when Gerry Kelly and myself met before the Leeds Castle negotiation, Gerry Kelly had to be convinced by me and by the SDLP that that was an issue that needed to be got right. In fact Gerry concluded that conversation by saying that he accepted that Sinn Fein needs to do more on it. So I’m glad that people might now be recognizing this MI5 issue is one that needs to be watched, but I’m also certain that just as, despite all the resistance of unionism, despite all the resistance from elements in the NIO, despite resistance from former people in Special Branch, we’ve been able to turn round on the hard issues on policing, we’ll do the same on MI5.

NOEL THOMPSON

But a lot more people vote for Gerry Kelly’s party than vote for yours. They believe the Sinn Fein interpretation?

ALEX ATTWOOD

Sinn Fein, God knows what their interpretation now is, Gerry Kelly a minute ago was talking about subliminal intimidation…

NOEL THOMPSON

Well it was a word I introduced.

ALEX ATTWOOD

Well whatever it means, people on the ground knows that the policing of today compared with the policing of the RUC five, and six, and seven years is very different. People know today that the Police Ombudsman, the PSNI and the Policing Board are making the police account in terms of how they perform, in terms of human rights, in terms of use of force. People know that this is very different and consequently when people like Gerry Kelly or the DUP tell untruths and half truths for the nature of policing people aren’t buying it anymore.

NOEL THOMPSON

You’re telling untruths and half truths?

GERRY KELLY

Our vote went up and the SDLP’s went down so, I mean Alex comes on these programs all the time and says that people don’t believe what we are saying. Policing is crucial, was crucial in the last election, has been crucial in a number of elections and they both are (unclear) as opposed to yours. Also Alex shouldn’t come on here and tell lies, this stuff about his last conversation with me is complete and utter, he’s making it up as he goes along. You cannot say that there is going to be the full implementation of Patten within two years, and I hope in two years he’s going to stand over this, when in fact the representativeness in itself has only been 1% per year which means to bring it up to the Patten level it has to be another 15 years.

NOEL THOMPSON

But you want your cake and eat it there because the Commissioner says the lack of progress is not operational or structural, it reflects the need for full community political support. It would be happening much quicker if everyone was agreed that this was the way forward?

GERRY KELLY

Yes and if we had transfer of powers we might be in that position, but we have always said that we will go for the full package. The SDLP, in the initial stages, in the first Policing Act in fact, voted for the first Police Act, the Mandelson Act, then abstained and then we convinced them that they should vote against it. They then come into a whole negotiation along with us to get in a second Policing Act, indeed a second Criminal Justice Act. This battle back and forth is about policing, it’s about the transfer, the MI5 issue, just as a matter of transfer which was announced by Paul Murphy before he left, before we get to the issue of transfer which is the issue of accountability and we can’t get it up without the institutions. What we are very concerned about is that MI5 may actually undermine the whole issue of transfer and take over the policing. In the one hand we’re getting accountability and on the other hand it’s being taken away from us.

NOEL THOMPSON

He’s not liking his wounds as you say he should be?

ALEX ATTWOOD

Gerry Kelly?

NOEL THOMPSON

Yes.

ALEX ATTWOOD

I can understand why he wants to tell people what he’s telling tonight, but he cannot argue with the facts that an independent body like the Oversight Commissioner, people from outside these islands who are monitoring the implementation of Patten, says that 80% of Patten is or substantially accomplished as we speak and that is only three and a half years after the SDLP went on the Policing Board. That’s a record second to none when it comes to the policing given the ancient history of this island.