West Belfast Festival: Chief Constable Opening Remarks

I know that me being here this evening is difficult for some people; while others simply just don’t want me here at all. I accept that.

So why did I come? I came because I believe the vast majority of people in our society want a better future for our children and our young people. This is something that I and my officers and staff have in common with all of you.

I am both a member of the community and a police officer charged with the protection of the community. I work for you; as do all the officers and staff of the PSNI. We are your Police Service.

While I will support, and indeed uphold and protect every human being’s right to protest, I also believe that the best way to make progress is to talk.

Tonight’s event is on dealing with the Past. I firmly believe that to talk about our future; we have to be prepared to talk about our past. The extent to which the legacy of the past has implications for both the present and the future cannot be underestimated.

At the outset of a conversation on dealing with the past, I think it is important to acknowledge that many, many people both in this room and far beyond, from all parts of our community, have suffered great hurt and loss as a result of our troubled past.

The past is the present for those who suffered pain, loss and grief as a result of our dark and grievous history. To all of those who have suffered, as a human being, I want to say, I am sorry for your loss.

As Chief Constable, my role is to deliver a Police Service that is fit for purpose; our job is to keep people safe. But as Chief Constable, I also find myself with a significant role to play in trying to deal with the past.

It was not a role referred to in the Patten Report; yet the past has a very significant impact on both the operational side of our business and the way in which we are perceived by the community.

The public services of today are not suitably constructed or resourced to deal adequately with the pain of our past. It is clear that the current piecemeal approach to the past is not working. It’s not working for me; it not working for you; it’s not working for anyone.

The absence of a more holistic solution leaves me as Chief in an impossible position, caught between financial constraints; legal obligations; and public expectation.

Delay in investigation and the disclosure of information has been a chronic feature of the current piecemeal approach to the past; and this has caused huge damage to public confidence in policing.

I understand that families are waiting for answers to questions and further delay only adds to their pain. I will not defend the indefensible. I will not be obstructive. I want to make progress.

While I will do all that I can to support those who are still suffering; I will not compound peoples’ pain by giving unrealistic expectations of what policing can deliver.

While we have invested police resources heavily in dealing with the past, it is nowhere near enough to meet the level of demand that exists for the legacy review, investigation and disclosure work.

As Chief Constable I have an immediate obligation to keep people safe today. As my budget shrinks and my organisation reduces in size, I am being forced to prioritise increasingly finite resources.

I am not abdicating my responsibility or being defensive. But it is a fact that the police work within the resources and legislative framework set in the political arena. Sometimes it feels like broader society places all the responsibility wrongly at the Police Service’s door.

Looking to the future, I believe that if we are courageous enough, the Stormont House Agreement can be harnessed as an opportunity to make a difference for those who have been hurt by the past.

In particular, the proposal for the Historical Investigations Unit (HIU) would remove the responsibilities for the review and investigation of acts of violence during the troubles from the PSNI; allowing us to concentrate on Keeping People Safe in the present and the future.

Establishing and implementing the HIU is a massive project, entailing changes in legislation, so that I can give full ownership of all the material for which I have responsibility as Chief Constable, to the future Director of the HIU.

I have given my full support to the Stormont House Agreement (SHA) and the establishment of the Historical Investigations Unit (HIU). I can give you my commitment that the PSNI will continue to play our part in delivering on the SHA. But responsibility for delivering on the commitments in the Agreement sits much wider than Policing.

Immediately before this event, I had the opportunity to view the Relatives For Justice Remembrance Quilt. I am grateful to Relatives for Justice for allowing that opportunity, which I found to be a poignant reminder of so many individual stories of loss.

It strikes me that, as a society, we are still struggling to reach a collective way of acknowledging and remembering the hurt that has been experienced by so many in this part of the world.

To achieve the confident peaceful future that our children deserve, there is no doubt that our society would benefit from a collective acknowledgement of the pain caused by our dark and grievous past and a shared commitment that it should never happen again.

I, like many other police officers during the troubles, have experienced the shock of violence and the pain and trauma it can cause – both physical and emotional. I lost people close to me.

Each of us, as individuals chose to remember our loss in our own way. I choose to remember and acknowledge my experiences in a very private way. For the most part, it seems to me that the pain experienced by policing remains a very private and personal story.

Just because I am Chief Constable does not mean I am not prepared to accept that there were serious problems in policing in the past. But nor can I ignore the fact that there is much more to the policing story that what is known from OPONI Reports and Public Inquiries. While these reports and investigations importantly have their place, they neglect to tell a much wider story of policing. A story of bravery and a story of pain and loss.

Every section of our society suffered pain and loss during the troubles. So, there is a challenge on every section of our society to find some way to respond to this loss.

We cannot continue to sit on the past. We have to face it.

We cannot leave dealing with the past to our children and young people. They are our future. It is the responsibility of those who lived through the past to find a way of addressing the past.

Perhaps as a society we need to lose all our fears; we need to try to understand, not just our own story and experience of the past; but the story and experience of others.

Fear gets us nowhere. Fear does not make peace. Courage, optimism and belief makes peace.

So let us be brave and courageous; let us be optimistic. Let us believe in a safe, confident and peaceful society. To do so, we have to face our fears; to go beyond our comfort zones; to be selfless; to ready to listen and have challenging but respectful conversations.