Written Evidence to the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee for its inquiry into the ‘Administrative scheme for "on-the-runs"’, from Aileen Quinton, June 2014 – OTR0016

My mother, Alberta Quinton, was murdered in “The Poppy Day Massacre” in Enniskillen on 8/11/87. I have been involved in victims issues for a lot of my time since mainly as an individual as I live in London and outside the reach for many practical purposes of NI based victims groups. I have recently joined Innocent Victims United. This is a personal submission.

The OTR issue is just one part of a jigsaw of a mindset that has a total disregard for justice and victims and where the only wellbeing that matters is that of the terrorists. Innocent victims don’t matter as we are not going to bomb London. This submission is to convey my perceptions of the way victims were basically ignored, apart from patronising us, in dealing with the OTR issue. I, and many victims, are very appreciative of the attitude of the NI Select Committee in setting up this Inquiry. It is a rare example of officialdom actually demonstrating a genuine interest in justice with regard to NI terrorism.

I, with other victims, was very active in campaigning against the OTR legislation that the government eventually withdrew. The first reading was in the week of the anniversary of the Poppy Day Massacre. Apart from it being one of the biggest atrocities, many victims, especially relating to RUC, and army are particularly vulnerable around Remembrance Sunday.

I happened to see David Hansen, a junior NI minister at the time, in Central Lobby and I took the opportunity to introduce myself.. He asked “How are you?” I said that I would be better if I wasn’t having to come on the anniversary of my mother’s murder to plead with my government not to give justice away as a present to her murderers. He put his hand on my arm and said “It must be difficult”. I said “Difficult is irrelevant. It is immoral and should be impossible”. He then said that he had to go but I must “come and have a proper meeting before the second reading”. I waited in vain for my invitation for such a meeting.

I did several media interviews including Jeremy Vine. I also sent a letter to all Labour MPs and during the second reading debate, Kate Hoey quoted from it and Jeffrey Donaldson mentioned my profile in the media campaigning against the legislation. When it was time for Hansen to speak he said something about caring about victims and having met them. “I met with Aileen Quinton and Willie Frazer”.  It disgusted me that he would try and portray our encounter as having met with me. Luckily Jeffrey Donaldson was able to interject saying he was with me when the minister bumped into me in Central Lobby and that he had promised a proper meeting before this second reading and had it happened? Hansen was a bit flustered and mentioned something vague about having met with many victims.

Apparently he mentioned something to Jeffrey about having to set up the meeting but still no invitation came. Eventually I spoke to The Newsletter and it had a big piece “Minister Breaks Promise to Victims”. On the afternoon of the day it was published, I had a call about setting up the meeting.

As it happened the legislation was not progressed (because SF backed out. SF’s view matters. Victims don’t), but I still wanted the meeting to let him know the damage done to innocent people who had already been damaged more than enough.

I wanted witnesses and invited Mark Durkan, Iris Robinson and Lembit Opik to come with me as being MPs representing a diversity of non terrorist perspective in NI.

I had been told that the SDLP had tackled the government about its failure to do an Equality Impact Assessment. The response apparently was that only the perpetrators were affected and there was no reason to suppose that any of the diversity strands would be relevant.

I raised this during the meeting with Hansen. One of his team mentioned that the EIA has to be based on defined strands to defend the failure to conduct one. I was very frustrated at this and asked how could it not be obvious that disability would not be disproportionately represented amongst victims of terrorism? The real answer of course is that you make sure that you do not consider the victims even for the nanosecond necessary for this to be apparent.

I also raised the issue of the impact on victims even if the legislation were morally justified (which I stressed I rejected). Hanson said that there would have been a package of support for victims. I pointed out the damage done to victims already because of trying to introduce the legislation. I told him of emergency psychiatric treatment having to be provided, specifically relating to the attempted legislation. I made it clear that victims had been failed on two grounds. One in the attempt to legislate something so unjust and two in failing to mitigate the damage to victims from introducing the legislation. He muttered some platitudes about having something to learn.  So, considering the Letters of Comfort, what learning was done? There is little comfort for victims. The scheme seems to have gone ahead without the legislation and there is no package of support to victims to mitigate the damage.

During the meeting Mark Durkan stressed that whatever was to happen in terms of dealing with these issues should have the interests of the victims at the heart. I would say close to the heart. The key issue at the heart should be justice,

I knew that the legislation had been withdrawn because of SF’s orchestration not because of our campaign and I also knew that Blair and Hain would not let the issue rest and would be up to something and I expected we would need to enter the fray again. I did not realise that the dirty deed would be not just agreed in secret but carried out in secret.

The shock of the “Comfort Letters” is not that they would be morally capable of setting this up but that they could get away with it legally.

Victims are continually being told that we have to “move on” and that there needs to be progress. I don’t intend to move on from the basic principles of decency and justice. Progress should be towards these concepts not away.

Many victims have been told that no stone would be left unturned to bring those responsible to justice, the stones that are being unturned are not revealing evidence of the terrorism but evidence of murky pandering to the terrorists. The OTR stone is just one in a convoluted crazy paving covering a myriad devices to protect high ranking terrorists from meaningful investigation and potential conviction. There needs to be a full Inquiry into this protection and how it has been operating.