Dealing with legacy cases unsustainable unless North’s prosecution service resourced

Dealing with legacy cases of the Troubles will be unsustainable unless the North’s Public Prosecution Service receives significant extra resources, outgoing Director of Public Prosecutions Barra McGrory QC has warned.

Mr McGrory (59) has confirmed he will quit his post, after just over six years in office, at the end of December with the new director of public prosecutions taking over at the start of January.

Northern Ireland Attorney General John Larkin QC is due to announce the name of the next DPP imminently, possibly today.

Mr McGrory, a native of north Belfast, indicated he planned to return to his legal practice.

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Mr McGrory made the headlines when he was appointed DPP in November 2011, not least due to the fact that he was the first nationalist to attain the post, that he was son of the well-known solicitor PJ McGrory, and because he was Sinn Féin leader Gerry Adams’s lawyer.

Former clients

While Mr McGrory excused himself from cases involving his former clients, including Mr Adams, his nationalist background was cited by some conservative and unionist politicians and Tory newspapers in questioning his bona fides.

After the North’s Public Prosecution Service (PPS) decided to prosecute three British soldiers for Troubles-related killings, Mr McGrory came under severe criticism with one Conservative MP, Sir Gerald Howarth under House of Commons privilege, describing him as the “Sinn Féin supporting director of public prosecutions”.

At the time Mr McGrory said these allegations were wrong and were insulting to him and his office. Announcing the date of his retirement on Thursday, he said such attacks “can have the affect of diminishing public confidence in the office”.

“Politicians should maybe think carefully before they make remarks like those that were made in the House of Commons. By and large I have had a positive engagement with politicians. Certainly Irish politicians North and South I have had no difficulty with,” he said.

And in relation to some Tory and unionist calls for an amnesty for British soldiers and former police officers facing possible Troubles related killings charges, Mr McGrory said an amnesty “would be difficult to manage”.

Legal challenges

He said such a partial amnesty would invite legal challenges.

“In terms of the international legality of it, it would be questionable,” he added.

Asked would his successor be taking on a poisoned chalice in terms of dealing with legacy issues, Mr McGrory said such cases were “extremely difficult to manage from a prosecutorial view”. Part of the problem was that they were “mixed up with our politics and our history”.

Mr McGrory said about half of his legal work was taken up with an increasing amount of legacy cases. “In the last 18 months the legal landscape from a prosecutorial perspective has become increasingly dominated by legacy.”

He added in relation to dealing with these cases that “without additional and specifically targeted resources it will become unsustainable”.

Mr McGrory said the absence of a Northern Executive and Assembly was also causing problems for the PPS.

“It is difficult to make progress in terms of reshaping and reforming the justice system in the absence of political leadership. That is just a fact of life.”

Mr McGrory leaves office at a time when public confidence in the PPS is increasing. According to the Northern Ireland Omnibus Survey, when he took over as DPP in 2011 67 per cent of the public were very or fairly confident in the fairness and impartiality of the PPS. The current confidence figure is 76 per cent.

In 2011, 57 per cent of the public were very or fairly confident in the effectiveness of the PPS. The current figure is 71 per cent.