Cementing Accountability: The Office of Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland

Tim Gracey
Director of Information, Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland

For more than three decades, televisions and newspapers across the world have painted Northern Ireland as a violent society and one divided against itself. Policing in that community had to deal with all the issues arising from such a conflict, while at the same time many on both sides of the community viewed policing as a major political issue.

In recent years Northern Ireland has become a less violent place, with many of the terrorists having declared a commitment to peace. The political divisions remain, however, and policing seems as big a political issue as ever. Despite this, many observers have been amazed that a new system for dealing with complaints against the Police – called the Office of Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland – has won general support in the divided society, and in particular seems to have won the support of the more extreme sides of the political debate.

Independent research records that more than 83% of Catholic people and 75% of Protestant people feel they would be treated fairly by the Office. This would seem to be borne out from figures produced by the Office: 49% of its complaints come from Protestant people and 41% from Catholic people. Such a thing would have seemed unbelievable five years ago – the Office opened in November 2000 – but such has been the undeniable success of the new system that other jurisdictions have been examining the model very carefully.

The woman at the heart of this project is the Police Ombudsman, Mrs Nuala O’Loan: “I had to create a new independent, impartial service for dealing with complaints against the police which would win the support of all sections of the community. It had to be independent. In many countries throughout the world the police investigate themselves. We have created an organisation of highly skilled and professional investigators who were and are not a part of the police service they investigate”.

Mrs O’Loan’s study of similar attempts at independent police investigation elsewhere had shown that they suffered from two main problems: lack of funding and lack of training. To avoid facing these problems, she began with a budget of almost £ 6 million. She also cast her net internationally to ensure she had the most experienced of staff. Before the Office opened, those staff underwent intensive training. The Office now has 126 staff which comes from widely different disciplines and professional backgrounds, including police officers, solicitors, academics and the like. They provide a 24 hour a day, 365 day a year service.

It was also essential to ensure that the new service would meet the needs of the community. Mrs O’Loan undertook an extensive programme of consultation across Northern Ireland to establish how people wanted that service delivered. “People told us they wanted an open, transparent, fair and impartial system. They also said they wanted a system which was easily accessible and which they could understand,” she recalled.

One of the main benefits of the new system is that the community has accepted it will provide an independent and highly professional investigation of complaints against the police. According to Mrs O’Loan, “Quite often, an incident occurs which can bring the police and the community into conflict. The fact that people know my Office is investigating seems to calm things down. Where before there may have been a dangerous level of tension, there now seems a contentment to let my Office get on with the job”.

A case in point, which illustrates this well, was a tragic incident in a market town in Northern Ireland where a young man was killed by the gates of the local police station. He had been among a crowd that had chased a man towards the police station where, outside its gates, they kicked him, punched him on the head and threatened to kill him. Seeing the attack, a police officer rushed to the station gates, which were opened for him, and confronted the crowd. When they refused to stop the attack, the officer tried to grab the victim and pull him into the base to safety. Several men kept hitting the man as the police officer tried to pull him inside. The officer managed to get the intended victim inside the gates but at least two other men got in too. One of the men tried to run back through the gates but was caught between them as they began to close.

The police officer, seeing what had happened, shouted to a colleague to open the gates again and banged on the safety mechanism on the gates four or five times with his fist to stop them closing. However, the safety mechanism had been disabled on the gates, which continued to close and the gates crushed the man. Police officers at the scene gave first aid but he died shortly afterwards in hospital from his injuries.

The Police Ombudsman immediately investigated the issue of any possible police misconduct, which might have contributed to the man’s death. Police Ombudsman investigators were called immediately to the scene, which had been cordoned off. The area was forensically examined and CCTV in and near the police station was seized. Statements were taken from police officers involved and from people who had been in the crowd. The people in the crowd had been drinking and there were discrepancies in their accounts of what happened, the order in which it happened, and in the timing of events.

Paperwork completed by various contractors who had worked on the gates was examined. The investigation revealed that an engineer who had been working on the gates long before the accident had found additional wiring in the gates’ control panel, which appeared to have the effect of bypassing their safety edges. The man said he was not qualified to deal with this and assumed that someone else was carrying out work on this part of the gates.

In her final report on the matter, the Police Ombudsman found no evidence to link any individual police officer to the problems with the gate. She said the officers on duty that night did not bear responsibility for the death but said that the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) as an organization was guilty of corporate failure in their duty to maintain the gates so that they operated safely – a failure that had terrible consequences.

“The man’s family accepted the findings of our report and so too did the wider community. We also made a series of 16 recommendations designed to ensure that the gates at the station were made safe and that there are no similar problems at other stations,” she said.

Mrs. O’Loan has said police accountability is a role, which is not for the faint hearted: “The job is not for the faint hearted, but it is very rewarding. We regularly get letters from people who not only thank us for helping resolve their problems but, just as importantly, thanking us for the manner in which we treat them. We have come a long way in five years.”