The recent government announcement of a public inquiry into the murder of Pat Finucane has been met with predictable incredulity from unionists, who are unable to make a distinction between murders perpetrated by state forces and murders committed by terrorists, who are answerable to no-one.
Pat Finucane was a solicitor working within the judicial system where everyone, no matter how heinous their alleged crime, is entitled to a defence. Sometimes the system works perfectly well, the innocent are exonerated and the guilty are convicted.
However, in the history of the Troubles there were times when it did not work, the innocent – like the Birmingham Six – were convicted and some of the guilty remained free, particularly when the suspects were members, or agents, of the security forces and stones were left ‘unturned’, despite the assurances of Sir Patrick Mayhew after one atrocity. The Finucane case is just one such example, where security force collusion, or even orchestration, is suspected.
From a British perspective, it was imperative that crown forces were never seen in a bad light and atrocities like Bloody Sunday needed a damage limitation exercise; this began immediately when the British Home Secretary totally misled the House of Commons in his address the following day. Bernadette Devlin, the only MP who had an eye witness account of events in Derry, was not even permitted to speak. In utter frustration she crossed the floor and slapped Reginald Maudling’s face. In a television interview she was asked about ‘her unladylike behaviour’ and her response is still available on social media and well worth viewing.
It took nearly 40 years before the government acknowledged the truth about Bloody Sunday. The Finucane family have been waiting 35 years and hopefully the truth will emerge.
No enquiries would be needed now if the custodians of law and order had behaved impeccably, as implied by Maudling and Mayhew, or if their excesses had been properly and independently investigated. Instead we got the Widgery report, and legacy legislation which many believe is designed to conceal security force participation in a dirty war. Withholding information from inquiries and supplying inquests with heavily redacted documents is often justified as ‘in the public interest’.
P McKenna, Newry, Co Down
