Last February the High Court ruled that Marie Anderson, the Police Ombudsman, had (as per this article in the Irish News written by Alan Erwin) … exceeded her legal powers in making findings of collusive behaviour by RUC officers in a series of loyalist murders, the High Court has ruled. A judge held that Marie Anderson acted ultra vires by reaching conclusions in public statements which amounted to determinations of misconduct. The verdict represents victory in a legal challenge by ... Read more...
Last February the High Court ruled that Marie Anderson, the Police Ombudsman, had (as per this article in the Irish News written by Alan Erwin)
… exceeded her legal powers in making findings of collusive behaviour by RUC officers in a series of loyalist murders, the High Court has ruled. A judge held that Marie Anderson acted ultra vires by reaching conclusions in public statements which amounted to determinations of misconduct. The verdict represents victory in a legal challenge by the Northern Ireland Retired Police Officers Association over the contents of three separate reports into Troubles-era killings. Mr Justice Scoffield stressed that the watchdog body’s role is to investigate rather than adjudicate.
The Irish News summarised the cases as follows…
One of the cases focuses on a probe into a series of loyalist paramilitary murders in the south Belfast area between 1990 and 1998. In 2022 Mrs Anderson found evidence of “collusive behaviour” by police in the attacks, which included the February 1992 massacre at the Sean Graham betting shop on the Ormeau Road where UDA gunmen shot dead five Catholic victims.
Legal action was also taken over the report into the police handling of loyalist killings in the northwest region from 1989 to 1993.
A third challenge related to findings in the case of four men wrongly accused of murdering a British soldier in Derry. Known as the Derry Four, the Ombudsman concluded that RUC officers had unfairly obtained confessions from them for the killing of Lt Stephen Kirby in the city in 1979. The four men later fled Northern Ireland until their acquittal in 1998.
A follow-up hearing on Monday finally decided upon a remedy. As per this report in Belfast Telegraph(again, written by Alan Erwin) the reports in question must…
include a notice about the watchdog exceeding its legal powers, a High Court judge ruled today. Mr Justice Scoffield acknowledged the public statements should not be formally quashed or completely withdrawn from publication. But he held a further form of words was required to reflect previous rulings that former Ombudsman Marie Anderson acted ultra vires (meaning beyond the powers) by reaching conclusions which amounted to determination of misconduct. He said: “I consider that a strengthened form of notice should be included with the published reports… giving some indication of the court’s core findings.”
The article concludes that an appeal against the verdict is expected.
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