I DIDN’T WANT TO SAY I TOLD YOU SO …

Posted By: July 07, 2013

“I don’t want to say I told you so, but I did  — and told the entire U.S. Congress.”

Father Sean Mc Manus on Capitol Hill2 copy 2
That was how Fr. Sean Mc Manus reacted to the positively damning report by Her Majesty’s Inspectorate of Constabulary (HMIC) on the Historical Enquiries Team (HET).
HET was established in 2005 as a ” cold cases team” to review all the killings during The Troubles, 1969-1998.
Fr. Mc Manus explained: ” HET, and here’s the rub, is part of the Police Service of Northern Ireland ( PSNI). Therefore, it is a case of police and former police investigating themselves. I have always been concerned  that HET would cover up State killings.”
The Report found among other things that the Team’s work did not conform to the European Convention of Human Rights; that it treated police and British Army killings less vigorously; and that it did not conform to policing standards.
The Report unequivocally declares: “The HET treats state involvement cases differently as a matter of policy and this appears to be based on a misinterpretation of the law. This is entirely wrong, and has led to state involvement cases being reviewed with less rigor in some areas than non-state cases.”
Devastatingly, the Report also states : “It is striking that not one state involvement case relating to the British army has to date been referred to the police for further investigation or prosecution.”

Fr. Mc Manus said: ” Like many  others I have been hoping against hope that there would be a ” new beginning to policing in Northern Ireland… But now comes this — and on top of the cruel mistreatment of Marian Price, the stonewalling of the British Government over the State assassination of Pat Finucane, etc., etc. It will be seen to add fuel to the Dissidents charge that nothing has changed at the core of the judicial and policing establishment in The North.”