The Police Ombudsman has been ‘unable to conclude definitively’ on allegations that functioning firearms were returned to paramilitary arms hides during covert policing operations and were subsequently used during the murders of police officers and a civilian.
The Police Ombudsman’s investigation followed two referrals from the PSNI and two public complaints linked to these issues.
The police referrals concerned statements made by two men that the Weapons and Explosives Research Centre (WERC), part of RUC Special Branch, tested and then returned live weapons to the control of paramilitaries.
One statement was made by a former police officer attached to WERC and reported as part of a television documentary. The other statements were made by a civilian member of WERC staff to the Stevens Enquiry*.
Both men alleged that operational guns returned to paramilitaries were subsequently used in the murders of police officers.
Although neither man named the police officers, Constables Harold Beckett and Gary Meyer who were killed on 30 June 1990 were identified by the television documentary.
As a result, the Police Ombudsman investigation initially considered their murders, and in parallel, also considered a complaint from Constable Beckett’s daughter about the RUC investigation into her father’s death.
The Police Ombudsman also received a complaint from the family of James Henry Babington, who was shot dead on 4 October 1989. His murder was linked ballistically to the murders of the two constables and was, therefore, also a focus of the Police Ombudsman’s overarching investigation.
Police Ombudsman, Mrs Marie Anderson, said:
“My investigation has established that the weapons referred to in the statements by the former police officer and former WERC employee were not those used in the murders of Constable Beckett and Constable Meyer.
“However, in light of the available evidence and intelligence, it has not been possible to conclude definitively on whether WERC had any involvement in the weapons which were used in their murders.”
Commenting on whether the two men’s accounts could be linked to other murders, Mrs Anderson said:
“My investigators reviewed the murders of nine police officers and they have been unable to conclusively identify any police officer who was killed in the circumstances described.
“This meant it was not possible to examine any related police investigation to establish whether it was adversely affected by a failure to disseminate relevant intelligence concerning firearms or associated suspects.”
The first referral: Statement by Police Officer, BBC Spotlight
The first referral in 2015 arose from a BBC Spotlight programme in which a former police officer attached to WERC alleged that two handguns had been removed from a Provisional Irish Republican Army (PIRA) arms hide and submitted to WERC by Special Branch officers for test-firing and to establish if they had been used in any paramilitary attacks.
According to the police officer’s account, the Special Branch officers said that the guns would be returned to the arms hide, which would then be monitored. When PIRA members next accessed the hide, he was told an arrest operation would take place.
The police officer’s account outlined that the guns were subsequently used in the murder of two police officers.
The programme identified the two officers as Constables Harold Beckett and Gary Meyer who were shot on 30 June 1990 in Belfast city centre by two gunmen. Constable Beckett died at the scene and Constable Meyer died a short time later in hospital. The attack was subsequently claimed by the PIRA.
Police Ombudsman investigators reviewed all available material and intelligence about the murders. They also made efforts to interview the police officer whose account was referred to in the documentary in order to obtain more information about the weapons he described and the dates of the incident. In addition, they sought to establish the names of the Special Branch officers who requested the test-firing of the weapons, together with details of the weapons’ history which the officer said had been completed. These efforts were unsuccessful, and the police officer died before the conclusion of this investigation.
Investigators established that the police officer was attached to WERC between 1980 and 1984 and was not, therefore, based there at the time of the murders of Constables Beckett and Meyer in 1990.
Referral 2: Statements made to the Stevens Enquiry
Police Ombudsman investigators made efforts to interview other police and civilian staff who were attached to WERC at the time of the murders. They also reviewed statements that a number of WERC staff provided to the Stevens Enquiry.
Several of these statements were given by a former civilian WERC scientific officer about the deactivation of weapons in the possession of paramilitaries.
It was these statements which led to the second referral from the PSNI to the Police Ombudsman in 2017.
He stated that in the early 1990s he had been given two 9mm Browning pistols by Special Branch officers which had been recovered from a paramilitary weapons hide. He claimed he was told to deactivate one of the weapons, but not the other.
Several days later, he received spent cases from the scene of a police officer’s murder and determined that the cases matched the Browning pistol which he had been instructed not to deactivate.
He believed the murder had happened close to the Europa Hotel in Belfast and that the weapon, along with a second 9mm Browning pistol, had been used previously in a shooting in the Boucher Road area of the city.
When Police Ombudsman investigators met with him as part of their investigation, the former employee confirmed his account was accurate.
In an effort to connect his statements and the statements made to the Spotlight programme to a murder, Police Ombudsman investigators reviewed the documentation from the murders of nine police officers in Belfast city centre between 1980 and 1992.
Although aspects of a number of these murders matched some elements of the statements, none could be definitively linked to the circumstances described in the documentary or by the civilian who been attached to WERC.
The accounts also indicated there were plans in place to recover the weapons which were returned to paramilitaries. However, it has not been possible to establish if a recovery plan existed in these cases.
Mrs Anderson also addressed the intent of the covert policing activity of WERC:
“The objective of the deactivation of weapons was clearly to save lives by thwarting the activities of terrorists. The stated aim of handing back ‘live’ weapons, which occurred as past Ombudsman investigations and enquiries have established, was to protect the source of those weapons.
“However, this investigation was unable to establish whether any state agent was unlawfully afforded protection from scrutiny in relation to their potential involvement in these cases,” she said.
The weapons used in the murders of Mr Henry Babington, Constable Beckett and Constable Meyer
Police recovered both weapons used in the murders of Constables Beckett and Meyer.
The first, a Ruger revolver, was dropped by one of the gunmen as he fled the scene of the murders and had been stolen in February 1989 from the home of a serving police officer.
The second gun, a 9mm Browning pistol, was found by police during a search of a property in Belfast in October 1990. It matched three discharged 9mm cartridge cases which had been found at the scene of the murders of Constables Beckett and Meyer earlier that year.
The same 9mm Browning had also been used in the murder of James Henry Babington on 4 October 1989. Mr Babington, known to his family and friends as Henry, was killed by two PIRA gunmen in Chichester Park in Belfast. PIRA later apologised for the murder, stating that a “loyalist paramilitary” had been the intended target. Mr Babington had no paramilitary connections and at his inquest the Coroner found that he was a victim of mistaken identity.
The weapon used in his killing had been stolen during the abduction and murders of Corporal Derek Wood and Corporal David Howes in west Belfast in March 1988.
A man arrested during the October 1990 search was charged with possession of firearms with intent to endanger life and failing to provide information in respect of the murders of Constables Beckett and Meyer and the murder of Mr Babington. He was subsequently sentenced to seven years imprisonment for a firearms offence.
As part of the Police Ombudsman investigation, the Ruger revolver was examined by an independent expert who found no evidence that the gun had been tampered with or that any attempts had been made to deactivate it. However, he could not definitively say that this was the case in June 1990 as parts can be removed and replaced.
The Browning pistol was returned to the military by the RUC in 1996 and enquiries by the Police Ombudsman confirmed that the location of the weapon is not known.
The Police Ombudsman has been critical in other reports of the disposal by police of weapons in unsolved murders and is of the view that this weapon ought not to have been disposed of by police in this case.
Family complaint: Mr James Henry Babington
The origins, use, recovery and disposal of the weapons used in Mr Babington’s murder also formed part of the linked Police Ombudsman investigation into the circumstances of his death.
The investigation confirmed that the 9mm Browning pistol used to murder Mr Babington in 1989 was one of two weapons used in the murders of Constables Beckett and Meyer the following year.
The second was a Ruger revolver which had no history of previous use by paramilitaries. It was recovered by police in west Belfast in December 1989 and was subsequently destroyed. The Police Ombudsman considers that this weapon, related to an unresolved murder, ought not to have been destroyed by police in this case.
The Police Ombudsman investigation found that the initial police response to Mr Babington’s murder, including management of the scene, witness enquiries and gathering of forensic evidence, was prompt and thorough.
In the days following the murder, a significant number of pieces of intelligence and other information identified individuals as having been involved in the murder and nine people were ultimately arrested.
Although there were examples where there was no record of intelligence having been disseminated by Special Branch to the SIO, the majority of the intelligence received was forwarded and used to initiate investigative lines of enquiry.
However, Police Ombudsman investigators could find no recorded rationale as to why some individuals, linked through intelligence and witness evidence, were arrested and interviewed under criminal caution while others were not.
One witness named a person he had seen acting suspiciously in the area the day before Mr Babington was murdered. While the SIO sought information about the person from Special Branch, there was no evidence of any further action.
Nor was there any recorded investigative action in relation to another person identified in several pieces of intelligence and described as a well-known and active member of PIRA.
The Police Ombudsman believes that both of these people ought to have been considered as suspects in Mr Babington’s murder.
The investigation also identified a number of investigative failings, including missed forensic opportunities.
In one arrest police seized a suspect’s brown leather jacket which was found to have specks of dried human blood. It was not possible to obtain a blood grouping from it, and it could not, therefore, be linked to the murder of Mr Babington.
The forensic laboratory was subsequently told that the suspect had been eliminated from enquiries, and no further testing of the jacket was required. The jacket was destroyed.
“Police indicated that this person had been eliminated from the investigation despite intelligence linking him to the murder. My investigators have been unable to establish the rationale for this decision. The retention and proper storage of the leather jacket could have been significant due to later advancements in forensic technology. This mishandling potentially limited future investigative opportunities,” said Mrs Anderson.
Failures in record-keeping and the unavailability of documentation, which the Police Ombudsman has previously referred to as a recurring, systemic issue in historical investigations, also hindered investigators in this case and was particularly relevant to understanding the rationale for decisions not to arrest suspects.
After reviewing all available evidence, the Police Ombudsman considered that the RUC investigation was incomplete. However, she acknowledged that it took place at a time when policing resources, notably in the RUC’s Criminal Investigations Department (CID), were under significant pressure, given the number of murders, attempted murders, and other serious criminal offences being committed in Northern Ireland at that time. In 1989, there were 23 sectarian murders in Belfast alone.
The Police Ombudsman was unable to complete a number of lines of enquiry within the timeframe allowed for her to conduct historical investigations and as a result of resource pressures. These have been detailed to Mr Babington’s family.
Family complaint: Constable Harold Beckett
Allegations relating to WERC’s involvement in the weapons used in Constables Beckett’s murder were central to the complaint made to the Police Ombudsman by his daughter. She also raised other concerns and questions about the RUC investigation into her father’s murder.
Having gathered and reviewed substantial documentation, the Police Ombudsman said the RUC investigation was “well resourced, well managed and conducted without any delay.”
It raised 338 investigative actions, recorded over 420 witness statements, and received over 190 messages. These were part of a police investigation that incorporated witness, forensic, intelligence, and suspect enquiries.
The Senior Investigating Officer’s (SIO) policy log, internal reports and briefings demonstrated that he viewed forensics as integral to his investigation and considerable work was done on examining descriptions given of suspects and preparing for arrests.
Initial information following the murders was promptly disseminated and the first arrests were made within hours of the murders. More followed, and there were a significant number of arrests.
However, there was insufficient evidence to charge any of these persons with offences linked to the murders.
Although it is clear from police documentation that the SIO sought all relevant intelligence from Special Branch and that he utilised this intelligence from the day of the murder, the Police Ombudsman has identified failures in the non-dissemination of intelligence by Special Branch.
Intelligence is not evidence but the Police Ombudsman believes that this intelligence could have been capable of supporting new and further lines of the enquiry for the SIO, had he been made aware of them.
However, aside from early arrests, the available investigative material showed that where intelligence and information which named individuals allegedly involved in the murders was passed to the RUC investigation team, limited action was taken. This investigation has been unable to establish the reason for this.
The Police Ombudsman considered the absence of action to be significant in one particular instance where information was provided by the military. Members of the military came forward to report that a person had told them that he witnessed the murders and knew the gunmen by name. They also provided a photograph. This did not result in any new lines of enquiry.
“This information highlighted a person that potentially had very significant information pertaining to the identity of the gunmen. It is not known why the SIO did not generate any enquiries emanating from this intelligence,” said Mrs Anderson.
The Police Ombudsman identified further missed investigative opportunities, including inaction after the planned arrest of two people on suspicion of the murders could not take place because the area had been designated out of bounds. The police records of the investigation do not provide a rationale for why there was no further attempt to speak to or arrest these individuals.
In view of the available evidence and information, the Police Ombudsman concurs with the concerns of Constable Beckett’s daughter about police failures to pursue evidential opportunities.
“I am of the view that the investigative failings in this case are so significant that it was incapable of leading to the apprehension and prosecution of the perpetrators, and therefore, was not Article 2 compliant,” concluded Mrs Anderson.
In overall conclusion, Mrs Anderson said:
“I am of the view, based on the available intelligence reviewed by Police Ombudsman investigators, that there was no intelligence that, if acted upon, would have been capable of preventing the murders of Henry Babington and Constables Beckett and Meyer.
“I believe that Henry Babington, Constable Beckett and Constable Meyer were the innocent victims of a campaign of terror mounted by republican paramilitaries. PIRA alone was responsible for the murders.”
Mrs Anderson expressed her thanks to the families of Henry Babington and Constables Beckett and Meyer for their patience throughout the duration of the protracted investigation.
*The Stevens Enquiry
The Stevens Enquiry was a series of three official investigations led by Sir John Stevens, the then Deputy Chief Constable of Cambridgeshire Constabulary, that investigated allegations of ‘collusion’ in Northern Ireland between loyalist paramilitaries and the security forces.