Republican News · Thursday 31 January 2002

Leaks, double standards and the new Deputy Chief Constable

BY LAURA FRIEL

When is a 'leak' not a 'leak? Easy. When it's a press conference fronted by the Deputy Chief Constable Alan McQuillan.

But apart from the status of the briefing, there is little to distinguish between the 'timely' media interventions of the newly promoted McQuillan and the off camera contributions of his PSNI colleagues.

Accordingly, it was not without amusement that republicans read an article in the Sunday Tribune last week in which Alan McQuillan declared that he will be, perhaps, might be, about to order an urgent investigation into high level 'leaks' from within the PSNI.

"There is a major issue of leaks to selected members of the press and we are going to have to do something about it," McQuillan told journalist Susan McKay, "These leaks are disgraceful and undermine the credibility of the PSNI."

Now Susan McKay is a journalist who commands respect. She has the uncanny habit of asking just the right questions to just the right people and in doing so exposing many an uncomfortable fact.

Just a few days earlier, McQuillan had presided over a Belfast press conference. It had been a slick affair, stage managed event down to the British Remembrance poppy tucked into the rim of the Deputy Chief Constable's peaked cap and casually discarded on the table in front of him. Behind McQuillan, billboards proclaimed the credentials of the PSNI "working in partnership with the community".

Given the PSNI's supporting role in the Save Dave pantomime, their apparent reluctance to curtail loyalist violence in North and East Belfast and the ensuing press conference, working in partnership with anti-Agreement unionism might have been more honest.

During the press conference, McQuillan had announced that the PSNI had "broken into the heart of the IRA" and were in the process of exposing "a major Provisional intelligence gathering operation".

d the Deputy Chief Constable was talking 'big'. The 40-strong investigation team was working around the clock, examining 79 computers, 1,000 computer disks and 19,000 pages of documents. 2,000 people had already been questioned, we were told.

This figure stands in sharp contrast to the mere 19 people questioned in connection with the loyalist murders of Gavin Brett, Ciaran Cummings and Danny McColgan - and the single person questioned about the killing of Gerard Lawlor.

"When I hear the news and see how much time and energy the PSNI is devoting to this Stormont spy ring and compare it with how Danny's murder is being investigated, I despair," Marie McColgan told a local paper.

Within hours of McQuillan's announcements, journalists were reporting 'a senior security' source claiming that the current investigation into an alleged 'spy ring' had been triggered by a 'tip off' by a 'mole' at the heart of the IRA.

Incidentally, the source also claimed that the arrest of NIO messenger Billy Mackesssy (on the same day as the raid on Sinn Féin's office in Stormont) was simply a smokescreen.

Having apparently gone to considerable trouble, including the arbitrary arrest of a former junior civil servant, it is incongruous then to announce it. Unless, of course, the PSNI are engaging in psy ops.

Meanwhile, another civil servant arrested in connection with the alleged Stormont 'spy ring' was released without charge, but not before his name and personal details had been plastered all over the British press.

In the excitement of the Deputy Chief Constable's announcements, most of the media forgot or chose to ignore how it had all begun. In the 'news' frenzy, few worried about the witch-hunt against Catholic civil servants.

"Civil servants at Stormont, both Protestant and Catholic, are said to be furious that the west Belfast man who worked in the OFMDFM (the office of the First Minister and Deputy First Minister) has been 'fingered' by the police," a senior civil servant told Susan McKay.

d the political implications had not been lost on them. Stormont civil servants were "questioning the timing of these leaks and the agenda underlying them", the senior civil servant said.

The British government suspended the Stormont executive just days after the PSNI 'leaked' the claim that fibres had been found linking the IRA to the Castlereagh raid. It was all very convenient.

"It is obvious that Trimble is delighted that Castlereagh, Stormont-gate, Operation Torsion and Operation Hezz have distracted people from the fact that it was his party which brought about the suspension of Stormont by turning anti-Agreement at its last council meeting," wrote Susan McKay.

It's against this background that I'm guessing Susan McKay lifted the telephone and asked if the new Deputy Chief Constable would answer a few questions. From the pen portrait included in her article, no doubt McKay asked a few anticipated questions before she dropped her bombshell.

"And just what game are you playing Deputy Chief Constable?" did she ask or was it couched in a more carefully crafted question?

"About these leaks, Alan," did she say? Leaks which "have clearly been designed to destabilise the peace process and in particular to boost anti-Agreement unionism and discredit Sinn Féin", to repeat McKay's own words.

d just what was any Deputy Chief Constable supposed to do? Of course he's against it, they're a "disgrace" and "undermine the credibility of the PSNI".

"Why didn't they just leave it to me to hold a press conference or two?" he might have replied.

After all, McQuillan has had plenty of experience when it comes to creating an anti-republican smokescreen. First as cover for the Orange Order in Derry, then for loyalist violence in North Belfast and now for rejectionist unionism throughout the north.

"I don't court controversy," McQuillan told McKay, "but it's hard to avoid."

"When I hear the news and see how much time and energy the PSNI is devoting to this Stormont spy ring and compare it with how Danny's murder is being investigated, I despair," Marie McColgan told a local paper