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BILLY WRIGHT INQUIRY
Third Preliminary Hearing 31st October – 3rd November 2006
These oral hearings of the Billy Wright Inquiry were held at the Europa Hotel, Great Victoria Street, Belfast from Monday 30th October to Friday 3rd November 2006. Hearings commenced at 10.00am and concluded at 4.30pm. Witnesses who had made applications for anonymity were referred to by letters of the alphabet, either because anonymity had been granted or because, the panel having considered that application and refused it, these witnesses intimated that they intend to take a judicial review of that decision.
These hearings were part of the investigative stage of the inquiry. The purpose of the hearings was to consider the documentation recovered to date by the inquiry from the Northern Ireland Prison Service (NIPS). In early 2005 the inquiry was provided with some of the documents that had been provided to Judge Cory who conducted a preliminary inquiry to determine whether a full public inquiry was warranted in the case of the murder of Billy Wright. Although a great deal of documentation was supplied to the Inquiry by NIPS this hearing was held because the inquiry had questions about failure to provide other relevant documentation. There were17 witnesses. Lord MacLean, the Inquiry chair, said this was a separate exercise from the main inquiry hearings which are scheduled to commence in the spring of next year, although no judgment has yet been delivered in Mr Wright’s (Billy Wright’s father’s) challenge to the conversion of the inquiry to an inquiry under the Inquiries Act 2005, which may delay the opening of the full inquiry further.
Under section 40 of the Inquiries Act 2005 the power to make awards in respect of represented parties' legal costs is vested in the Inquiry Chair. But under Section 40(4) of that Act, the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland has power to impose conditions and/or qualifications on any award that the Chair is empowered to make in respect of a party's legal representation. On 26th October 2006 the Secretary of State exercised his power and imposed upon the Chair a maximum level of fees that could be awarded to counsel representing those parties who had been awarded funding. A number of counsel from Northern Ireland disagree with the level of fees referred to in the Secretary of State's determination and are questioning the correctness of the Secretary of State's action in exercising these powers. Counsel for the family and the Prison Officers’ Association agreed to put that matter aside for the moment to enable these hearings to proceed.
Since February 2005 the inquiry team has been seeking recovery of documents relevant to the list of issues promulgated at the outset of this public inquiry, both from the prison authorities and from other state agencies who are included in the terms of reference. For most of 2005 that exercise was carried out on the basis of the voluntary co-operation but in December the Inquiry announced it would serve formal notices for discovery of documents.
The inquiry decided that it needed to hold oral hearings with the prison service because issues that have arisen relating to the nature, or the form, of the documentary evidence recovered from the Northern Ireland Prison Service and, secondly, to address the question of potentially relevant documents that appear no longer to be available. The main focus was on security or intelligence documents, from HMP Maze and from NIPS headquarters. The hearing sought to determine, firstly the nature and extent of intelligence information that would have been available to the Security Department in HMP Maze and to prison headquarters for the period in which the inquiry has an interest; secondly, how that information would have been recorded, disseminated and stored; and, thirdly, whether the totality of such information and records relevant to the list of issues is now available to this inquiry.
A further focus of the hearings was to seek to ascertain what administrative and procedural documents relevant to the matters set out in the list of issues are no longer available and to seek to identify where there are gaps.
Consideration was be given to whether the destruction of any relevant records has been carried out in accordance with an appropriate destruction policy and is properly recorded as required by such a policy.
A significant number of these documents have been destroyed. These include documents which were disclosed to Judge Cory and returned by his team to NIPS.
The following points of interest and concern arose during the hearings.
In 1997, intelligence information about prisoners was recorded in a number of ways. The four primary means were: a) a clipboard assigned to each wing of each H Block, on which daily information was recorded by prison officers; b) a “potted” SIR [Security Information Report], which was one page in length; c) a Staff Communication Sheet, which could run to as many pages as needed; and d) the SASHA [Security and Sociometric Handling Analysis] computer. All these methods of recording were used simultaneously, but in theory all intelligence material was entered on the computer. The SASHA system was used as a means of collation, analysis and assessment of intelligence, and also for recording any action taken as a result of those processes and any dissemination of the recorded information. During the hearing, it emerged that the only information recorded on SASHA between July and December 1997 was incoming intelligence. In other words, there was no record of assessment, analysis, action taken, or dissemination. Stephen Davis, the governor in charge of intelligence at the Maze from August 1977 to February 2000, was unable to explain the absence of this material. It also emerged that the potted SIRs from March 1997 onwards have disappeared. There appear to have been two security files on Billy Wright, one of which was gutted of all intelligence information. Intelligence on other prisoners prior to 1998 has also disappeared.
All intelligence on prisoners was collated on in relation to each prisoner as an individual. Despite the fact that the Maze was organised along segregated lines in terms of allegiance to paramilitary groups, each of which had “officers commanding” prison wings, H Blocks and prison-wide, no intelligence was kept on the paramilitary groups themselves. Intelligence about the groups appears to have been based on pooled common knowledge among prison officers. However, at some so far unspecified date, possibly after the murder, a document entitled “Paramilitary prisoners: Analysis of organisation and command structures” was produced.
On 9th February 2001 the Northern Ireland Human Rights Commission wrote to the Northern Ireland Prison Service asking them to retain certain items in relation to Billy Wright. On 2nd April 2001 solicitors acting for David Wright wrote to NIPS asking them to hold documents relevant to Billy Wright in anticipation of an inquiry. Witness C, who was head of the NIPS Policy Branch from July 2000 to March 2004, acted as NIPS’ liaison officer with Judge Cory’s investigation. He confirmed that everything they supplied to Judge Cory was returned to them, but he could not account for the fact that NIPS was now unable to supply some of that material to the Billy Wright Inquiry.
The evidence of Maureen Johnstone, who was the Security Governor at Maghaberry prison when, according to her and Principal Security Officer Malloy, some 800 security files from the Maze were destroyed in 2002 disclosed that, in the words of Derek Batchelor QC, Counsel to the Inquiry, “… the Northern Ireland Prison Service have destroyed all security intelligence files for every paramilitary prisoner who was incarcerated in the Maze during the entire period of the troubles, after the Weston Park agreement, which was the basis on which this inquiry was set up, on a basis that is contrary to NIPS' own destruction policy, in the face of an agreement with the public records office of Northern Ireland about preservation of these prison public records, without any written authorisation, without any auditable document trail, and for reasons of the Freedom of Information Act and data protection” despite the fact that the Data Protection Act was irrelevant and the Freedom of Information Act had not yet come into force nor even been considered by the Northern Ireland Prison Service. Ms Johnstone attributed the order to destroy the files to Martin Mogg, at that time the Governor of Maghaberry, who has since died, but it would appear that she herself never questioned his order.
Also present at the meeting when it was decided to destroy the files was Principal Security Officer Richard Molloy. He gave evidence that he was tasked with arranging for the files to be burned. He gave this job to a prison officer who was on light duties after returning from sick leave, who was not himself a security officer. Richard Molloy never discussed the destruction with his supervisor, Security Governor McNally, who was not present at the meeting, and he kept no record of the destruction of the files, even though he was aware of the policy not to destroy prisoners’ files.
Witness K, who had sought anonymity from the Inquiry, had been the member of the NIPS Inquiry Liaison Unit, which was responsible for supplying information to the Inquiry, who specialised in intelligence matters. His evidence disclosed a long list of items which he had been unable to trace when requested to do so by the Inquiry. He also testified that he had believed until he heard the evidence of Ms Johnstone and Mr Malloy that the Maze prisoner security files had been destroyed not in 2002, but in 2004, when Maghaberry prison destroyed its similar files. There was no record of the destruction of these files either, which meant that the Inquiry had no way of knowing whose evidence was correct. Another unanswered question was who had decided to destroy the Maghaberry files. Their destruction followed a recommendation by an RUC officer called Martindale that duplicate staff files be destroyed after the names of prison personnel had been passed to a paramilitary group in 2002 (presumably following the Castlereagh affair). Someone in the Prison Service had taken it upon him or herself to extend this recommendation to prisoner security files as well, but the Inquiry was not able to establish at this point who was responsible for this decision.
Some of the Northern Ireland Prison Service (NIPS) and former NIPS personnel who testified denied that there had been any system of prisoner informants at the Maze.
The hearings were adjourned to be resumed in December 2006.
For Peace Justice & Human Rights
