There is “no justification” for the Government to withhold a file on a boy killed by a police plastic bullet in Londonderry in 1981, a former police ombudsman for Northern Ireland has said.
Paul Whitters, 15, died in hospital 10 days after being struck on the head by a baton round fired by a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officer after a day of disorder in Derry.
In recent years, the family successfully lobbied to secure a confidential file on the incident from the National Archives in Kew, Surrey, but it was heavily redacted and Paul’s mother said the family was left “no wiser”.
Baroness O’Loan, who was the first police ombudsman in Northern Ireland, told peers that there is a 93-page file that will not be made available until 2084, more than 100 years after Paul’s death.
The independent crossbench peer said that she herself has read these files, which are being withheld on national security grounds, and does not believe that this is justified.
She told the House of Lords: “Fifteen-year-old Paul Whitters was killed by an RUC plastic bullet in Derry in 1981. He was throwing stones at a bakery.
“Ninety-three pages of his file will not be made available until 2084, over 100 years after his death.
“I have read those files. There is no justification for withholding them.”
Lady O’Loan also highlighted the case of 14-year-old Julie Livingstone, who was shot in the head by a plastic bullet fired from an Army Land Rover in 1981, and whose files are closed until 2054.
She said: “A post-conflict society must be built on the rule of law.
“People distrust institutions perceived to be biased or controlled by the Government, most particularly by individuals from the security services, I’m afraid.
“I’ve acknowledged that the security services do a huge amount of good for our country, but there is a problem in this context.
“If people repeatedly find out, as has been the case, that information is being withheld or distorted, they will know that they are not being allowed to know and distrust will grow…
“It may be said that the contents may be distressing for the families. But there is nothing more distressing than losing a loved one, especially a child, to a violent death.”
Lady O’Loan herself survived an IRA bombing at Ulster Polytechnic, Jordanstown, in 1977, while she was pregnant and tragically lost her baby as a result.
The crossbencher called for the Government to appoint an independent commission to re-examine these locked files and determine whether there is “any real national security reason to withhold them from the families”.
Lady O’Loan went on to note two high-profile cases currently going through the courts: that of Sean Brown, who was killed by loyalist paramilitaries in 1997, and Liam Paul Thompson, who was shot dead by loyalist paramilitaries in 1994.
The Government is currently in a tussle with the courts over holding a public inquiry into Sean Brown’s death and the release of a gist of the evidence contained in the sensitive security force file about Liam Paul Thompson.
Finally, she highlighted 26 families who are due to receive a report from Operation Kenova on their cases relating to the activities of the British agent known as Stakeknife, which were sent to MI5 in August last year and there has been no word of them since.
Lady O’Loan said: “There is a very clear picture of a determination to control robustly the possibility of the emergence of material damaging to the UK.
“It is suspected, because it has proved to be the case in the past, that this evidence may include warnings not issued, police investigations being obstructed and murderers – particularly state agents, being permitted to carry on murdering even when they had confessed to their crimes.
“These cases are over 25 years old. Sean Brown and Liam Paul Thompson were shot dead by loyalists. The Kenova victims were killed by the IRA. The families want to see the information held by the state in relation to these murders.
“In each case, the Government, through its agencies, are refusing to release the material…
“The Government obviously relies on the protection of national security, protecting the identities of individuals, who may be dead, and national security processes or techniques, which may very well now be obsolete and are certainly widely known.”
She told peers that many people believe the Government will not release this information “because it would reveal the involvement of agents of the state in some of these murders and/or the protection of agents from being made accountable for murders”.
Several peers, including unaffiliated peer Baroness Hoey and a number from the DUP argued that Troubles-related inquests have disproportionately brought British security services under scrutiny for Troubles-related crimes, branding this an attempt to “re-write history”.