Government ‘turning a blind eye’ to Legacy pressures on police – Jon Boutcher

The Government is turning “a blind eye” to “pressures unfairly and unreasonably placed” on the PSNI by Troubles Legacy legislation, the force’s Chief Constable has said.

Jon Boutcher warned that Northern Ireland’s police have neither “the people nor the time” to assess material needed to deal with cases from the Troubles and expecting the force to do so would “infringe on the independence of the investigation”.

All UK police probes into Troubles-related killings were shut down in May 2024 under the previous Conservative government’s Legacy Act, and a new Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR) was established.

The current Labour Government Bill, agreed as part of a joint framework with the Irish government, will put in place a reformed Legacy Commission with enhanced powers.

Mr Boutcher said the legacy of the Troubles “has to be addressed” and requires a broader scope than “funding the commission”.

He told the policing board on Thursday: “I’m aware that the Northern Ireland office is seeking significant funding from the Treasury for the new Legacy Commission, and yet no consideration is given to helping the PSNI supply the majority of material that will be required by the Commission if it is to succeed.

“Indeed, worse than even that, the Troubles Bill requires the PSNI to undertake various assessments of every document that we will provide to it.

“We neither have the people nor the time to do this.

“The Legacy material held by the PSNI should be provided in an unfettered manner to the Commission.

“It should be for the Commission to suitably classify documents and determine any prejudice that might exist, not for the PSNI.

“Surely for us to do any such role would infringe on the independence of the investigation and the principles of ECHR.

“Further to these challenges, many legacy civil cases are culminating in the courts.

“The PSNI has no funding to address these cases that we inherited from policing during the Troubles era.

“The money to fund such cases comes from a budget that should be paid for neighbourhood officers desperately needed to keep communities safe from paramilitaries and for providing trained detectives to tackle violence against women and girls and the exploitation of children online.

“The turning of a blind eye to the Legacy pressures unfairly and unreasonably placed on the PSNI, whilst hundreds of millions is being sought from the Treasury for the Legacy commission, will likely prove to be a point of failure for legacy.”

Mr Boutcher later said there are 167 people working on Legacy issues but “it’s not enough”, and referred to the ongoing public inquiry into the 1998 Omagh Bombing which killed 29 people.

“We’re in exchanges with the Omagh Inquiry at the moment around the speed with which we can provide material, some of that is linked to a lack to capital funding, because we think we could and should have had investment around IT to help us avoid having to have people do the work but allow software to do it for us, which is actually more reliable…

“But we are going to have to have 200 people in Legacy, unfunded, dealing with things from an era before the PSNI was created.”

The Northern Ireland Office has been approached for comment.