“The Government obviously relies on the protection of national security, protecting the identities of individuals, who may be dead, and national security processes or techniques, which may very well now be obsolete and are certainly widely known.”.
The Government is currently in a tussle with the courts over holding a public inquiry into Sean Brown’s death and the release of a gist of the evidence contained in the sensitive security force file about Liam Paul Thompson.
Lady O’Loan went on to note two high-profile cases currently going through the courts: that of Sean Brown, who was killed by loyalist paramilitaries in 1997, and Liam Paul Thompson, who was shot dead by loyalist paramilitaries in 1994.
Baroness O’Loan, who was the first police ombudsman in Northern Ireland, told peers that there is a 93-page file that will not be made available until 2084, more than 100 years after Paul’s death.
There is “no justification” for the Government to withhold a file on a boy killed by a police plastic bullet in Londonderry in 1981, a former police ombudsman for Northern Ireland has said.
