{"id":4052,"date":"2018-09-19T12:50:46","date_gmt":"2018-09-19T11:50:46","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.longkeshinsideout.co.uk\/?p=4052"},"modified":"2018-09-19T12:51:52","modified_gmt":"2018-09-19T11:51:52","slug":"do-we-still-have-a-dirty-peace-in-which-investigation-of-child-rape-was-seemingly-deferred-to-the-ira-3","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.longkeshinsideout.co.uk\/?p=4052","title":{"rendered":"Do we still have \u201ca dirty peace\u201d in which investigation of child rape was seemingly deferred to the IRA?"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>\u201cPublicity is justly commended as a remedy for social and industrial diseases. Sunlight is said to be the best of disinfectants; electric light the most efficient\u00a0policeman\u201d<\/span><\/em>, said\u00a0associate justice of the U.S. Supreme Court, Louis Dembitz Brandeis.<\/p>\n

In the case of Mairia\u00a0Cahill, it is Cahill (not any organ of the state) who has forced an extraordinary story out of a close-mouthed system with horrendous import for wider society<\/span><\/strong>, of a rape victim who fell foul of the wrong people in the wrong place in post-conflict\u00a0NI and who got no help from state agencies who abandoned key\u00a0responsibilities.<\/p>\n

Jennifer O\u2019Leary\u2019s Spotlight programme last night, ranged largely around an extended interview with Cahill, crucially hinged on key excerpts from the report which raise startling questions about\u00a0the different standards of justice afforded rape victims in west Belfast as compared, say, to those who might be raped in North Down<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

The flat prose of the Ombudsman\u2019s\u00a0report notes simply that the RUC intelligence reports<\/a> note\u00a0that \u201cthe IRA were investigating the matter\u201d.\u00a0Although the reporting continued for a number of months the Ombudsman notes there is \u201cno evidence of any police action taken as a result of this information\u201d.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>We know from earlier news reports that the Ombudsman could find no evidence that an informer had been protected from prosecution (remember this was two years after the signing of the Belfast Agreement), which raises the question of what exactly was going on here?<\/em><\/span><\/strong><\/p>\n

On the face of it, the RUC (a much-hated institution among many \u201cgood\u201d Republicans) appears<\/span><\/em> to have been perfectly happy to leave the matter to the Provisional IRA. If that were all there was to this case, it might be treated as a historical contingency.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>But the fact that even when RUC CID received information \u201cthat Mr Morris was suspended from Sinn Fein as it was suspected that he was abusing certain children\u201d, and it was placed on local police systems and shared with some officers, it never made it to onto the National Criminal Intelligence System<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Hard to resist the conclusion that the RUC <\/span><\/strong>in these early days of the post-Belfast\u00a0Agreement era took an attitude that \u201cwhatever happens in Republican Belfast stays in Republican Belfast\u201d.<\/span><\/strong>\u00a0\u2018Human rights compliance\u2019 (a key SF demand of the police force back then) would be foregone.<\/p>\n

Roll forward to that odd and perplexing admission by the then DPP that his\u00a0department had effectively goosed its own prosecution by allowing the investigation of the case to be split between the IRA allegation and the rape itself, and that therefore no blame could or should be attached to Mairia for withdrawing from the case.<\/p>\n

The Ombudsman report only looks at the state\u2019s involvement in this affair<\/span><\/strong>. To suggest that the agencies charged with the health and protection of young women and men have been compromised is an understatement. In this case (and potentially others), it appears<\/em> to have ceded oversight of criminal justice where the IRA was still held to be in control<\/span><\/strong>.<\/p>\n

Yesterday, Mary Lou McDonald made the extraordinary claim that there were no records of whether Morris had ever been a member of Sinn Fein. A claim that seems not to have made it onto most of last night\u2019s mainstream news<\/span><\/strong>, but which was<\/span><\/em> covered by Spotlight\u2026<\/p>\n

In Northern Ireland, publicity for any inconvenient truth is hard to come by. In the case of RHI, where Stormont\u2019s Public Accounts Committee failed, Sir Patrick Coghlin\u00a0is slowly (but magnificently) succeeding to get to the very bottom of a very grubby matter.<\/p>\n

So unusual is the penetration he\u2019s brought to the issue, that bar the dogged and erudite Sam McBride at the News Letter<\/a> almost every Belfast based journalist struggles to get above the detail to the wider import of the story. Then again, this isn\u2019t Sam\u2019s first such challenge<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Perhaps it is the sheer enormity of the appalling vista<\/span><\/em> (to use Lord Denning\u2019s <\/a>poisonous and ruinously presumptive term<\/a>) that is preventing senior news editors from giving this story the proper investigative treatment it so clearly requires.<\/p>\n

But proceeding on the unreasoned basis that if as it sits out with the official records of the state, a senior political actor on the Irish national stage can fob journalists off with an (oddly\u00a0familiar<\/span><\/em><\/a>) \u2018we<\/span><\/em> have no records, therefore<\/span><\/em> there is no case\u2019 will not come without a cost.<\/p>\n

Mick Fealty<\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

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