Published: Thursday, 29th October, 2009 9:00am

Ex- senior policeman says Belfast agreement ruined victims' confidence

A senior police officer who led investigations into a number of high profile murders in Fermanagh has called for a new deal for the victims of terrorist violence.

Speaking at the Ulster Unionist Party conference in Belfast at the weekend, retired Detective Chief Inspector Norman Baxter (pictured right) said our traditional understanding of justice has been shattered and with it the confidence of the victims of paramilitary violence.

Mr. Baxter was in charge of inquiries into the murders of Fermanagh bus driver David Sullivan and businessman Gerry McGinley and supervised a review of the evidence in the Enniskillen Bomb. Over a number of years he has worked in a voluntary capacity supporting the victims of paramilitary violence from both sides of the community.

He was invited to join a panel of independent guests at the Ulster Unionist Party conference to discuss the issue of victims.

Speaking from the criminal justice perspective he said: "It is regrettable that the victims of paramilitary violence have become immersed in political controversy and endless wrangling in recent years. Unfortunately this has been a negative result of the political transition in Northern Ireland.

"From a criminal justice perspective the consequences of the Good Friday Agreement fractured our traditional understanding of justice and shattered the confidence of those most immediately affected by the troubles.

Successive governments insisted that terrorist violence was criminal. And yet it seems the Belfast Agreement has become a channel for paramilitary groups to argue that their violence was political rather than criminal. This has undermined the democratic principles of the criminal justice system. No shame, no remorse and no guilt have been displayed by the men of violence.

"In the post 1998 era a new language of victimhood has emerged where everyone is regarded as a victim. Gunmen and bomb makers; police officers and soldiers; children and adults. Anyone can self-declare themselves to be a victim. An 'a la carte' menu of victimhood now embraced in legislation," he stated.

"Society has been engineered to accept a 'make believe' history where there is no guilt, no crimes acknowledged, no criminals or terrorists and no responsibility apportioned for over 3,000 murders. Justice has been displaced.

The troubles are now viewed as an era of common victimhood with some of the most heinous crimes known to mankind sanitized. The lost lives of law-abiding Catholics and Protestants are relegated into the legal shadows where the light of justice cannot penetrate to unveil truth. Expectations of justice are now vested in the mainly administrative Historical Enquiry Team," added Mr. Baxter.

"The Eames-Bradley Consultative Group offered a glimmer of hope that the cry for truth and justice would triumph over political and media pressure not to de-stabilise the political process by attributing guilt to paramilitary personalities.

Regrettably the Eames-Bradley Report absorbed the distorted philosophy of a common equal victimhood. Those who died, or were imprisoned as a consequence of inflicting death and destruction on others, are to be treated as equals in this new culture of victimhood. Equal status with their victims; who were people murdered by bomb and bullet whilst upholding the law and living under the law," he stated.

"There are positive aspects to the Eames-Bradley Report, but it blurs the moral distinction between law breaker and law keeper, upon which a criminal justice system must be based," Mr. Baxter continued.

"There is no distinction in human suffering irrespective of the cause of death. In this respect the families of terrorists suffer the same sorrow in their bereavement as the families of the victims of paramilitary violence. However, society must make a moral and legal judgement on the actions of paramilitaries who have been involved in inflicting death and destruction. The Eames-Bradley Report fails to distinguish between law breaker and law keeper and this fundamental defect leaves the Report with no future," he argued.

"There has to be new thinking and a new approach to give the victims of paramilitary violence a new sense of dignity; within a moral framework which unequivocally distinguishes between law keeping and law breaking," Mr. Baxter concluded.

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