PSNI chief insists Policing Board briefed about on-the-runs scheme

The PSNI chief constable Matt Baggott has insisted the Policing Board was fully and thoroughly "briefed" about the "on the run" scheme for republican suspects despite DUP politicians maintaining they did not know of its existence.

There were a number of sharp exchanges between DUP members and Mr Baggott at a public meeting of the Policing Board in Belfast today during discussion of how more than 180 republican OTRs received non-prosecution guarantees.

Two of the DUP's members, MLAs Jonathan Craig and Robin Newton repeatedly complained that the board was not provided with proper detail about the scheme and was never informed it was called Operation Rapid.

“Why were we not briefed on it?” asked Mr Craig.

Mr Baggott said that over the course of today’s meeting he had answered such questions four or five times. He said there were hundreds of policing matters that had operational names, all of which were not given to the board.

“Let me be very clear about this. The Policing Board was briefed in 2010 fully about the existence of a process,” he said.

Mr Baggott said the 2010 briefing was “very full and very thorough” and was followed up by letter to the board detailing the number of people who availed of the scheme. “It is not right to say you were not briefed as a Policing Board. You were,” he said.

During one exchange Mr Craig accused the chief constable of being “disingenuous” in his answers only for Mr Baggott to interrupt him to state that he did not have the legal right to question his “integrity”.

Sinn Fein Assembly member Gerry Kelly said the impression was given by the DUP that because the term (Operation) "Rapid" was not used in the disputed 2010 briefing that therefore the board was not told about the OTRS. This was "utter nonsense", he said.

Mr Baggott said that he and his force would fully cooperate with inquiries into the scheme and how John Downey mistakenly came under the scheme even though he was wanted for questioning in connection with the 1982 IRA Hyde Park bombing in London in which four British soldiers were killed.

Meanwhile, the Northern Secretary Theresa Villiers is due to tell the Association of European Journalists in Belfast today - as Mr Baggott also said at the board yesterday - that the OTRs scheme did not amount to "any immunity, exemption or amnesty".

She will tell the association that it must be clearly understood by all OTRs who received non-prosecution commitments “that no letters which have been issued can be relied on to avoid questioning or prosecution for offences where information or evidence becomes available now or later”.

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