Description
Diverse forms of investigation have addressed controversies surrounding violence and the use of informers to collect intelligence during ‘the troubles’. Ranging from murder investigations to public inquiries, they have often faced difficulties getting access to all relevant information held by the security forces, and their outcomes have been met with varying degrees of acceptance. This paper assesses the impact survivors and victims’ families have had on these investigations, compared to the security forces’ impact. It does so by focusing on the Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland’s investigations into a lethal shooting at the Heights Bar, Loughinisland, County Down, on 18 June 1994. Investigations into this terrorist attack claimed police Special Branch had protected informers allegedly involved in the attack from prosecution. The paper will demonstrate how survivors and victims’ families used the courts to get the Ombudsman’s report into the attack withdrawn, then accepted the replacement report, only for that one to be challenged by retired police officers instead. This analysis is particularly timely given that the Northern Ireland Troubles (Legacy and Reconciliation) Bill seeks to overhaul the way similar controversies are dealt with by discontinuing and even prohibiting all such investigations in favour of information recovery.
