Work on all legacy inquests cannot be completed before cut-off date – Boutcher

It will not be possible for police to complete the disclosure process for all legacy inquests currently before the courts ahead of a guillotine date set out in the new Legacy Act, PSNI chief constable Jon Boutcher has said.

Mr Boutcher told the Policing Board that he feels as if police have been asked to do something in 25 weeks that “we’ve not done in the last 25 years”.

The Government’s controversial Legacy Act states any legacy inquests that have not reached the point of verdict by May 1 will be discontinued.

Thirteen inquests have been listed for hearing between now and April 2024.

However, a number of the hearings have faced delay because of the length of the disclosure process where police make documents available to the courts and make applications to redact certain sensitive materials on the grounds of public interest immunity (PII).

Sinn Fein board member Gerry Kelly raised concerns that the disclosure process was holding up cases.

Mr Boutcher responded: “Everybody in this room knows my commitment to families who suffered during the Troubles and to getting them as much information as is available now about what happened.

“We have a hard stop on those inquests of the 1st of May when, unless amended through current appeals to elements of the Legacy Bill or subsequently amended by any future government, there won’t be any further legacy inquests after the 1st of May and those that are ongoing on the 1st of May, will have to stop.

“Now we have got, unfortunately, a position where because of the amount of work that’s required, for a number of those inquests they will not be concluded, I fear, by the May date.”

Mr Boutcher said he was also concerned that there is no legal framework within the coronial process to deal with sensitive material, as exists in civil cases with the CMP (closed material proceedings) process.

He said he believed this may lead coroners in some cases to conclude that inquests would not be able to continue and added that he had commissioned legal advice to consider what the PSNI could do about the issue.

Mr Boutcher added: “The timescale is not ours. The timescale has been forced upon us, forced upon those coroners conducting those inquests.

“Everything that we can do we are doing to service the needs of the coroners, whether it’s resourcing my time because I have to do the public interest immunity certification.

“I make the time and I turn them around immediately.

“I go through each case very carefully, but there is no delay.

“But it felt like, this was what I said to myself before Christmas, we’ll have to try and do in the next 25 weeks what we’ve not done in the last 25 years.

“And frankly, that’s not possible.

“But we will do what we can and I want the families to know that we are doing what we can.”