British chief constable to head Belfast boys home investigation

British chief constable to head Belfast boys home investigation
Margaret Van Hattem, Political Staff
19 February 1982
Financial Times
A BRITISH chief constable is being sent to head investigations into the Royal Ulster Constabulary's handling of Belfast's Kincora sex scandal, Mr James Prior, the Northern Ireland Secretary, announced yesterday. The move follows mounting public pressure for a full judicial inquiry into the affair, which concerns allegations of an official cover-up of homosexual malpractices against boys in care at the Kincora Boys Home in East Belfast.
The fact that the affair went undetected for nearly 20 years has produced widespread concern and a spate of allegations that senior Loyalist politicians and officials may have been involved in a cover-up. Three men were convicted in November on charges arising from the affair. The Government has resisted demands for a full judicial inquiry. But the pressure increased last week when three members of a Government-appoined independent inquiry refused to proceed until further police investigations were completed.

In a statement to the Commons yesterday, Mr Prior said fresh allegations made to the police in recent days have put a different complextion on the affair. In response to a request from Mr Jack Hermon, the Northern Ireland chief constable, a chief constable would be sent from Britain 'to investigate allegations about the way in which the police have conducted their inquiries, and to have general oversight of the continuing investigations. The British chief constables' report would be made public.

Mr Prior said he would not reconstitute the existing inquiry and would delay his decision on whether to appoint a full-scale tribunal under the 1921 Tribunals of Inquirty Act until the police investigations and any prosecutions resulting from them were complete. At that stage he planned to appoint a committee chaired by a High Court judge, sitting in public, to investigate 'the failure to indentify earlier malpractices and to examine and assess present policies, procedures and practices for the administration of homes and hostels.'

The strong political overtones of the affair have come to the fore in recent weeks following public allegations that the Rev Ian Paisley, leader of the Democratic Unionist Party, failed to act on information about one of the convicted men supplied to him seven years ago.

Judicial inquiry

Mr Paisley, who admitted he was told of the man's homosexuality, but denied having known that he was employed at Kincora, has been one of the most vocal advocates of a judicial inquiry. Several MPs yesterday drew attention to the fact that Mr Paisley was not present during Mr Prior's statement.

Mr Joe Dean (Lab, Leeds West) asked Mr Prior for assurances that any elected representatives found to have deliberately withheld information which might have prevented the abuses should be subject to the full consequences of the law.

Mr Gerry Fitt (Ind. West Belfast) urged Mr Prior to empower the inquiry to subpoena the men already convicted and to subpoena Mr Colin Wallace, a former British army spokesman, who in 1975 gave details of the affair to Irish newspapers.

Mr Fitt praised the RUC's handling of the affair after 1980 but voiced serious doubts about its performance in the preceding 20 years.

Mr Prior, replying to Mr Fitt and other MPs, stressed that the Government and the Northern Ireland police regarded the affair as urgent and extremely serious. Any inquiry set up later would have full and complete powers, he said.

'I am anxious that there should be no lasting cause for public disquiet that the truth has not been wholly discovered,' he added.

The Government appears to be taking the latest allegations seriously. It has not ruled out the possibility that further prosecutions may delay by many months the opening of a new inquiry.

Although only four MPs from Northern Ireland were present during yesterday's statement, and only two, Mr Enoch Powell and Mr Fitt, sought to question Mr Prior, the affairs appears to have shocked MPs.

Mr Don Concannon, Labour's Northern Ireland spokesman, supported Mr Prior's decision. No knowledge of the affair had come before ministers during Labour's term in office, he added.