NI: Shoot to kill inquests
01 July 1994
Sir Hugh Annesley has succeeded in getting the High Court to set aside the summons ordering him to produce the working documents and other papers in the Stalker and Sampson inquiries to the Belfast coroner. The coroner had demanded the documents at the inquests into the deaths of the six men - Eugene Toman, John Burns, James McKerr, Michael Tighe, Peter Grew and Roderick Carroll - killed in 1982 under the RUC's shoot-to-kill policy (see Statewatch vol 2 no 4 & vol 4 no 1), reopened in March this year. John Thorburn, Stalker's deputy, was to give evidence at the reopened inquests, and needed to refresh his memory from working papers and other documents held by the Chief Constable. The inquest could not get to the truth of what happened without them.
When, in March, coroner John Leckey issued the summonses calling on Annesley to produce the documents, the RUC chief constable challenged the order. In May, secretary of state for Northern Ireland Sir Patrick Mayhew came to Annesley's support and issued a public interest immunity (pii) certificate covering the documents, citing national security. The Chief Constable also objected to the production of the documents to Thorburn, saying he was "an unsuitable person" to be given sight of them, although no explanation was given for his alleged unsuitability.
Judge Nicholson ruled that the issue of the summons by Belfast coroner John Leckey was oppressive and an abuse of the process of the court. Holding that the function of a coroner's court was to decide "how" someone died and not "in what broad circumstances" he went on: "I am satisfied that [Leckey] is genuinely concerned to deal openly with the fears and suspicions that there was a "shoot to kill" policy. But the coroner's court is not the forum in which this kind of issue can properly be dealt with. The judge did not, unfortunately, go on to say which forum will address such fears: twelve years and five coroners after the deaths the questions of the families and the wider public remain unanswered.
In the matter of inquests touching the deaths of Eugene Toman, James Gervaise McKerr John Frederick Burns Michael Justin Tighe Peter James Martin Grew and Roderick Martin Carroll, 11.7.94.