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COMMENCEMENT OF SUBSTANTIVE HEARINGS

MAY-JUNE 2007

 30^th May – 26^th June 2007

Opening remarks

In his opening remarks the Chair, Lord Maclean, drew attention to the “great deal” of investigatory work that has been carried out by the Inquiry since the first Preliminary Hearing in June 2005.  Over 100 potential witnesses have been interviewed and a high number of documents have been examined.  However, he pointed out that the Inquiry had not been speedily assisted in the request for documents and criticised in particular the PSNI.  He stated that issuing notices pursuant to section 21 of the Inquiries Act 2005 was a process that may not yet be over as the paperwork may not yet be complete. The Chair briefly commented on Mr Wright’s judicial review challenge to the conversion of the Inquiry from one under the Prison Act 1953 to one under the Inquiries Act 2005.  He confirmed that the current hearings are on the basis of the Inquiries Act 2005 and expressed the Panel’s view that the Inquiries Act 2005 conferred much wider powers than those conferred by the Prison Act 1953.  Applications for anonymity would be granted on a temporary basis pending the House of Lords’ decision in the Robert Hamill Inquiry application.

In his opening remarks, Mr Batchelor QC, Counsel for the Inquiry, explained that up until the summer recess, the Inquiry would be concerned only with scene-setting rather than dealing with the specifics of the events leading up to Billy Wrights murder.  The overall scheme for the public hearings has been divided up into 15 “chapters”, each chapter dealing with a specific theme.  The first 5 chapters are concerned with scene-setting and will subsequently be heard at this stage.  The relevant five chapters at this stage are:  (1) Introduction, (2) Political aspects, (3) High security prisons, (4) HMP Maze, (5) Background to decisions to transfer Billy Wright to HMP Maze and to house the LVF and the INLA in the same H Block.

In the course of his opening remarks, Mr Kane QC, for the Wright family, emphasised that Mr Wright approached the Inquiry with an open mind yet with “inner feelings, views, reservations and suspicions, which he hopes will be allayed” as the truth is pursued.  He commented on the continued unease the Wright family feel about the Inquiries Act 2005 and the topic of public interest immunity.  He reminded the Inquiry of the comment made by the former Chief Constable, Sir Hugh Annesley, who stated to The Telegraph on the 28^th December 1997:

It is just a question of who gets to the bastard first, us, the IRA or the UVF.  You can take your pick.

Mr Kane stated that further judgment of the efficacy of the entire process will be suspended by the Wright family as “the proof of the pudding is in the eating of it”.

Witness testimony

The first witness to the Inquiry was Professor Richard English, a Professor of Politics at Queen’s University, Belfast.  His c.v. indicates that his career in Queen’s started in 1989.  He has published widely on NI politics. He gave evidence of the chronology of the peace process, the politics, political parties and paramilitary groups of Northern Ireland and the history of the Maze Prison.

In describing the political context, Professor English sought to contextualise the events in NI through the 1990’s and Billy Wright’s place within that environment.  Professor English is of the view that there was no motivation or reason for the authorities to be involved in the murder of Billy Wright as the peace process was ongoing and it risked being de-stabilised by his death.  He believed that Billy Wright had “no significant body of support” and attracted minority support for the “militant politics he endorsed”.  He considered that Billy Wright became increasingly hostile to the loyalist engagement with the peace process as he felt it was undermining the Union and gave too many concessions to the Catholic community.  Billy Wright’s formation of the LVF was a result of his discomfort as to how things were progressing, but although Billy Wright reflected “broader concerns”, “in terms of his direct and militant and aggressive response… he was broadly atypical”. 

Billy Wright was involved in the Drumcree crises of 1995/96 and at the time of his death was, according to Professor English, “a conspicuous figure associated with aggressive opposition to the peace process”.  Professor English, reiterated throughout his testimony, that, in his opinion, state involvement in the murder of Billy Wright was most unlikely.  While he did not rule out the possibility of state involvement, he went on to say that it seemed to him, “on the balance of the evidence” that such an approach was “extraordinarily risky” and an “unpredictable path”.  While acknowledging that the Maze was run in an unorthodox way, he considered it “to be explicable that it was run as it was run”.  He referred in his statement to the catalogue of circumstances occurring at the time of Billy Wright’s murder as “possible irregularities”.

The Inquiry heard from Michael Newell about the running of prisons in England throughout the 1980’s and 1990’s.  He was formerly the Governor of HMP Durham and had conducted international trips to visit  prisons.  He told the Inquiry that it was important to keep staff among the prisoners as:

if you take staff away from the environment, you cede all control and as a consequence, you turn over to the rule that the prisoners may wish to impose within that environment…reducing levels of contact begins to give up elements of control and gives up intelligence

He confirmed that there had never been a walk-out of a high security prisoner in England and Wales.  Prisoners in England and Wales were counted 4 times a day and no notice of searches was given.   Mr Newell stated that he would expect fences to be checked daily, that broken cameras should be attended to within a couple of hours, and a risk assessment carried out if a camera could not be repaired immediately.

The Inquiry also heard from Peter Withers, who retired from the Scottish Prison Service since 2006 and gave evidence as to the systems in place in Scottish prisons. He gave evidence that, while the practice varied, there was no doubt that significant prisoner security files were retained “often because of the possibility of the prisoner returning to custody”.  There was also no formal processes for destroying prisoner security files and during his service he was never invited to formally approve the destruction of any security files and if he had he would have kept a record of destroying them.

The Inquiry also heard details of the fabric, structure and layout of the Maze from a Senior Building Surveyor with the NI Prison Service Estate Management who was involved in the design of the H Blocks at the Maze. 

Further detail of the layout, security components and personnel in the Maze in 1997 was provided by Austin Treacy, who is currently the Deputy Governor of HMP Maghaberry.  Mr Treacy explained that the doors leading out to the yards at the Maze were never locked at night and the prisoners had access day and night. The different layout of the access points to the yard meant that the INLA prisoners could access the yard at all times (H6 A and B wings had turnstile access) but the LVF prisoners (H6 C and D) had access through end grills which were manned only up until around 8pm at night. He also stated that, during his time at the Maze, due to health and safety concerns raised by the Prison Officer’s Association, external patrols did not go into the exercise yard and, as a consequence, the integrity of the perimeter fences would not have been checked either by day or night staff.

The Inquiry heard evidence of a Northern Ireland Prison Service (NIPS) Review of 1997 and details of the management structure of NIPS HQ during the same year from Maxwell Murray, the current Deputy Director Head of Operations in NIPS.  In his questioning of Mr Murray, the Reverend Oliver (Inquiry Panel member) referred to the Maze in 1997 as “a profoundly dysfunctional prison”.  Referring to the NIPS review of 1997, Reverend Oliver considered that it was “extraordinary” that the review paid so little attention to the very serious problems that the service had within the Maze.  Mr Murray accepts that there was largely an acceptance that the Review and subsequent Report would not be able to resolve the situation at the Maze.

The evidence of Desmond McMullen was directed at the period between 1984 when he was Governor I at the Maze, until his retirement in 1993.  He commented on the general atmosphere within the Maze during his time, which was one in which political prisoners should be appeased as no-one wanted “to rock the boat”, and in which attempts were made to deal with staff conditioning and isolation - which resulted in an inability to collect intelligence.  Mr McMullan also expressed the view that he did not support withdrawal from the wings as “if you lose control, they can do anything”.  This view was in contrast to his Deputy, William O’Loughlin, who favoured staff withdrawal from the wings.  Mr O’Loughlin gave evidence that the decision to decrease the periods of lock-up was taken by the NIO.

Alan Longwell gave evidence of the ongoing struggle for staff working in the Maze. During his career in NIPS, and while working at the Maze, he completed a thesis on conditions in the Maze and how they impacted on the prison staff.  Low morale, high sick rates and the constant psychological struggle were all key features during his time there. 

Witness CA was employed by NIPS in the Security Department and in January 1998 he was appointed full time Collator of the Security Intelligence Centre (“SIC”) at the Maze.  During his time at the Maze, he was never aware of any prisoner files being destroyed, nor was he aware of any intelligence documents being destroyed.

An example of the somewhat unusual rules applied in the Maze was given by Charles Neill who worked in the Maze as Principal Officer involved with prison visits.  He explained that, while professional visitors required identification coming into the prison, regular visitors did not.  He raised concerns about needing to check visitors as they left prison vans after their visit and he recommended a way of dealing with this.  He does not know whether his recommendation was approved or assessed in any way.

Prior to evidence being given by Finlay Spratt, Area Chair of the Prison Officers’ Association, several parties objected to him being called at this stage of the proceedings as they considered his evidence to consist mainly of hearsay.  They also felt that the difficulties around the disclosure of documents would make it difficult to properly challenge his evidence.  After retiring to consider, the Panel concluded that Mr Spratt’s evidence should be heard at this stage.

Mr Spratt never served in the Maze but had detailed information relating to the conditions of the prison through feedback, complaints and meetings with POA members and management.  He gave evidence of low morale, how what was supposed to be done on paper was not done in practice, how prison visit procedures were not adhered to and how, when a Prison Officer died, it was usually followed by increased concessions to the prisoners, reinforcing an overall policy of appeasement towards them.  During one search of the prison in March 1995, mobile phones were found - as were significant amounts of cash.  As a result of this, Mr Spratt asked for a judicial inquiry but management felt it “was not necessary at this stage”.  Mr Spratt considered the main problem to be lack of resources.  As prisoner movement increased, so did the number of tasks prison officers needed to carry out to deal with this and yet this wasn’t resourced. In his experience, although management decisions may have been finely balanced at times, the balance invariably seemed to tip in favour of a concession to a prisoner rather than a holding of the line by management.

Professor Jackie Gates is the current Chief Psychologist with NIPS and joined in 1991 as the first psychologist ever employed by NIPS.  She detailed the lack of resources and support services for prisoners and how she introduced a staff support system in 1991 to provide counselling and support.  Between 1991 and 2000 there were two suicides among Prison Officers compared to fifty suicides from the early 1970’s into the late 1980’s.  Her advice to management included withdrawing staff from the wings.  She felt that such a move would benefit the staff and would not have put the prisoners at risk.  She did not feel there was sufficient support for staff from Governor Grades and from management around the time of the working group in February 1993.  

Witness D was employed throughout 1995-2003 in the Operation and Management Division and during that period was engaged in the Prison Information Unit [PIU], also known as the Prisoner Intelligence Unit.  The PIU acted as a liaison centre for the operations side of the prison and their main function was the production of monthly intelligence reports.  Witness D gave evidence that he “presumed” that “active operations” and “covert activity” was carried out in the Maze, though he had no personal knowledge of this.  His role was to gather data on prisoner contact with outside groups, significant events within the prison, potential problem areas, and identify weaknesses in procedural security. Examples of his monthly report from February 1997 detail considerable interwing and interblock movement and visits among prisoners who were subsequently involved in the tunnel event the following month.

William Kirk worked in the Operations Management Division of the Maze.  His evidence briefly covered three areas – the classification and categorisation of prisoners; the committal and allocation of prisoners to placements within the NI Prison Estate and the transfer of prisoners between prisons.  Mr Kirk explained that if a prisoner wanted to go to the Maze and the faction within that block wanted him, there was never any question of a resource issue or accommodation problem associated with the decision. 

This part of the Inquiry ended on the 26^th June 2007 and was to resume on the 10^th September 2007 (no substantial resumption of hearings has occurred as of mid-October).