IN a long 164 pages that spends much time justifying its own existence and approach, the Kenova Report will leave many people wondering how £40 million could be spent by the state investigating historic murders and practices, with only one prosecution and zero chances of further prosecutions, no admission of liability from any actor to the conflict, and no formal accountability.
The Kenova Report’s ultimate value may be judged on that basis, but it is not to be dismissed. It is a contributor to our knowledge on the conflict and the contextual state practices that fomented and prolonged the conflict.
The report uses the term collusion as we expect it to be used. Not as a contested term, requiring some legal halo bestowed upon it, but as our understanding of how the British state operated officially, unofficially and in practice, using agents within republicanism and in complete concert with loyalism. By stating clearly that the Glenanne series of killings were "vicious sectarian murders and attacks in the 1970s on members of the Catholic community... involved deplorable collusion with loyalist terrorists on the part of some serving police officers and members of the military. There is no doubt that collusion took place”. The nonsensical linguistic niceties forced upon the Office of the Police Ombudsman have been blown out of the water. Collusion existed and families mourn those killed as a result of it.
Just like the de Silva report before it, although flawed in many ways, this report is likely to become a touchstone for families as they seek to understand how collusion worked, particularly in the late 1980s and early 1990s, contextualised by its assertion that “The entrenched position adopted by both the Army and RUC SB resulted in vital intelligence that could have been used to save lives and identify suspects being quietly filed away... than being acted upon. Time and again... protecting the agent outweighed protecting the life of a victim or protecting the right of their families to see justice for the crimes committed against their loved ones.”
That is added value to what has already been established in the Cory reports, Stevens I, II and III and de Silva.
However, that does not mean this is a gold standard for investigations. The state is investigating itself. MI5 was able to withhold information and the information it eventually released has not been tested to the standard families deserve. No-one was held accountable for this disgrace. The PPS received 60,000 pages in relation to Stakeknife; 12 Force Research Unit officers; two RUC officers; two MI5 officers; a former PPS prosecutor; and 20 alleged members of the IRA. The files submitted relate to murder, conspiracy to murder, false imprisonment, conspiracy to pervert the course of justice and misconduct in a public office. None has been taken forward.
In 2007 the Director of Public Prosecutions determined that none of the Stevens files prepared for their office, and tested in London, were in the public interest to pursue. Kenova stems directly from that failure and that black hole of impunity.
Just like Kenova’s findings on how collusion operated during the conflict, time and again the protection of agents, and their handlers, has outweighed the rights of victims and their families to justice.
Until a process in its entirety stops paying lip service and actually delivers on rights, it cannot be seen as anything more than elaborate window-dressing.
