I don’t spend every evening at a function mixing with an eclectic collection including Sir Hugh Orde the President of APCO, Sir Ian Blair, Lord David Ramsbottom, the good and the great and well, me! However the Longford Trust which was set up to continue the work of the late Lord Longford in promoting prison reform and acting as an advocate for the outcasts in society has a unique way of bringing a disparate but committed group of people together. Indeed so diverse is the roll call of benefactors of the Longford Trust that it includes uber- financier George Soros as well as the noble Lords Archer and Black — both of whom have what might be described as having an intimate inside knowledge of prison life.
Lord Longford
So it was on an otherwise gloomy London night which was anointed with impressive torrential rain we proceeded across the yard behind Westminster Abbey to Church House, Westminster, to the Synod Hall of the Church of England for the 8th annual “Longford Lecture” organised by the Longford Trust and sponsored by the excellent Independent Newspaper which is owned by Tony O’Reilly’s Independent News and Media. I forswear from commenting that all this splendour of the Church Commissioners has been paid for by stolen goods during the reign of Henry VIII and augmented from the “immoral earnings” of the Bishop of London’s Estate at Paddington which contains more than a fair share of London’s houses of pleasure. I admire myself for such self restraint and turn towards Frank Pakenham’s legacy and Sir Hugh Orde’s lecture reflecting on his experience of tackling the legacy of sectarian murders in Ireland during the Troubles under the title “"War is easy — peace is the difficult prize: An Alternative Approach to Resolving Unsolved Murders."
Sir Hugh Orde
Frank Longford said often during his life that he would like his epitaph to be 'the outcasts' outcast'. It summed up a long career as a politician, writer and campaigner on social and prison policy which was all about standing up for the unpopular, the unloved, the underdog and those on the margins of society. He was first a minister in Clement Attlee's post Second World War Labour government, where as Deputy Foreign Secretary he played a pivotal role in the reconstruction of West Germany. From 1964 to 1968, he was a member of Harold Wilson's Cabinet.
He started visiting prisoners in 1930 and continued until his death. He was assistant to Sir William Beveridge on his landmark report of 1942 which laid the basis for the Welfare State. In 1956 he founded New Bridge, one of the first organisations in Britain seeking to create links between prisoners and the community, and in 1963 chaired the committee on crime whose recommendations led to the establishment of the parole system. On leaving the government, he launched New Horizon, a charity for young people in need.
He attracted much controversy with his (ultimately unsuccessful) campaign for the release of Moors murderer Myra Hindley from prison; some would suggest she was an unworthy subject of his attention. He attracted criticism for his high-profile opposition to the gay rights movement and he was also criticised by the media for touring the sex clubs of Europe which he had attempted to close down. Both of these campaigns led to him being the target of a particularly high level of ridicule and criticism from the tabloid media.
In 1936, motivated by a gospel teaching that 'those who visit prisoners visit Christ', Longford begins visiting prisoners at Oxford gaol. Subsequently he attempts to visit at least one prisoner every week. After the war, he enters Clement Attlee's Labour government where he is tipped by Attlee as a future prime minister. He gained notoriety as the Cabinet Minister responsible for starting the reconstruction of occupied Germany. Conrad Adenauer hails him among the founders of West Germany; at home he is condemned for being soft on Britain's erstwhile enemies.
Despite his campaigning, Longford took a hard line on what constitutes criminality and was not a supporter of gay Rights. In 2000, during a House of Lords debate on equalising the age of consent for homosexuals, Longford declares: "I regard homosexuality as a sad disorder and handicap and it makes it very unlikely that a healthy family life can be had," adding that, "homosexual leanings are not to be condemned any more than schizophrenia or alcoholism, but they are sinful by Christian standards and those of many other churches."
Rachel Billington & Lady Antonia Fraser - Lord Longford's daughters
The Pakenham Family have roots in both Ireland and England and have influenced both countries over the years. In Dublin they are commemorated in Longford and Aungier Streets and the former Pakenham Hall near Castlepollard in Co. Meath was renamed Tullynally (The Gaelic name) by Tom Pakenham (The current Lord Longford, although he does not use his titles) when he took it over in 1961. Tom Pakenham is himself an author and historian of note as are his sisters, Lady Antonia Fraser, Rachel Billington and Judith Kazantzis. The Longford Trust is headed up by another son, Kevin Pakenham.
Before he took over at ACPO Sir Hugh Orde was Chief Constable of Northern Ireland for seven years and his great task was “How do you tackle 2,000 unsolved murders stretching back more than 30 years?” That was the dilemma which confronted him when he was appointed Chief Constable of the new cross-community Police Service of Northern Ireland in 2002 in the wake of the Good Friday Agreement.
The controversial solution he came up with – to provide victims' families with what he calls "maximum disclosure" of everything known about the killings, even if the police could not convict a suspect – could be a model, he believes, both for police work with victims of unsolved crimes, and for other societies with a history of sectarian tensions.
"The question I faced," he said, "were there alternative ways of dealing with unsolved serious crime where convictions are unlikely? In Northern Ireland, they were unlikely because of the lapse of time and the potential for loss or contamination of evidence, or for witnesses to have died or forgotten what they saw. And the longer a crime is unsolved, the harder it is to solve and therefore the less effort is put into it.
"But at the same time I was acutely aware that the families of the victims, who ranged from the widows of police officers and soldiers to the relatives of an IRA terrorist killed by the SAS, have not had satisfaction in any sense of the word. If I was going to move policing forwards, I was going to have to deal with the past first." His lecture also reflected on the general treatment of victims of crime. "What we achieved demonstrates a different way of thinking about victims. Traditionalists might argue that the role of the police is to investigate crime and therefore the sort of work we did was for others to do. I would disagree with that. Victims are a key part of our work. They are citizens first and we have a duty as police to protect citizens and help them get on with their lives. And if this work we did made a difference to them, then it is of value."
The over 3,524 deaths in the modern conflict in Ireland are recorded in the Cain Index (http://cain.ulst.ac.uk/sutton/ ) and it makes for harrowing reading. In the 80’s I was living in Dublin and three of the deaths recorded on the Cain Index touched me personally. In 1983 as part of their “Fund Raising” activities the IRA kidnapped Don Tidey the head of an Irish Supermarket chain and held him for ransom. Four IRA men with their captive were discovered in a hide at Balinamore Woods, Co. Leitrim and in breaking out of the Irish army / Gardai cordon they killed a trainee policeman and a trainee soldier. A person who worked for me was the girlfriend of the young Garda recruit who was murdered in the name of “fundraising” and she had a complete breakdown and never returned to her job. In March 1987 my friend Peter Nesbit who lived in Belfast and was in the RUC Reserve was answering a hoax burglary call on the Crumlin Road when he was blown apart by a litter bin bomb. Peter was a friend through Scouting and part of a mixed (Protestant / Catholic group) in Ballysillan on the edge of the Ardoyne in Belfast who all moved out of the area to be able to stay in touch as Belfast became polarised. He really enjoyed coming down to Dublin as he could leave his personal protection revolver behind. Indeed in the gallows humour which pervaded the North he used to joke how tall the Gardai in Dublin seemed as it was too dangerous to be a tall police man in the North. In September 1987 the brother of a good friend was “lifted” by the IRA from the streets of Dublin and found later shot on a border road in Co. Armagh. My friend had to identify his brother’s body in Craigavon mortuary and I remember to this day the expression on his face when he returned to Dublin having completed this dreadful duty.
Longford Scholar display at the lecture
I use these personal examples of two members of the security forces on either side of the border and of a person who the IRA claimed was a member because I had an insight to the grief left behind and to my knowledge nobody was held to account for these murders through the courts. So there is a huge “Justice Gap” for the families of the victims. Sir Hugh Orde’s Historic Cases Team (HCT) obviously filtered the evidence (for all the right reasons) and dealt with families of the victims on a 1-2-1 relationship basis and left it to these relatives of the victims to decide if they wished to make the evidence public. In doing this he did a great service in providing a measure of closure to the victims’ families for which he deserves full credit. My own feeling is that there is a bigger picture here and that the whole Island of Ireland needs closure, needs to know what happened and needs to move on. Is there a case for saying at a future date (2020?) that ALL the Police Files, ALL the Intelligence Files, NORTH and SOUTH, warts and all, mistakes and all, rubbish and all, need to be put into the public domain in a single searchable archive. This would undoubtedly be a highly controversial event and a double edged sword in the public perception but in the examples I’ve given what had happened to the three victims would be known and the public could make up its own mind about these events. I honestly believe that Ireland needs to endure such a catharsis before it can truly move forward – the past must no longer be a mystery.
The Longford Lecture is also the opportunity to present the Longford Award to organisations, often unknown and badly supported, who work with offenders, victims and their families. Inquest, a charity that has worked for more than 20 years with the bereaved families of those who have died in custody, has been awarded the 2009 Longford Prize, sponsored by The Independent and established as part of a trust in memory of the late Labour cabinet minister and outspoken prison reformer Lord Longford.
A Prison Cell
As well as its work with individuals, Inquest is also a lobbying organisation, recently persuading the Government to adopt many of its proposals for improving the coroners system so that it better serves the interests of all bereaved people. Deborah Coles, co-director of Inquest, said: "Our small dedicated team is delighted to receive this award for upholding the human rights of bereaved people. We hope that this award brings wider attention to and understanding of our important work."
We appreciated the impact of Inquest and its work at the reception afterwards. We were humbled to speak to a wonderful women they had helped and hear what she had gone through. As part of the strangely titled “Operation Safeguard” when Wandsworth Prison was being renovated her son was transferred to Bedford Prison. The son had been a heroin addict and Bedford could not care for him as it did not have a methadone replacement unit and he killed himself in his prison cell. She could not speak more highly of the help Inquest gave her family and for our part we were humbled by her courage and dignity.
Commendations were also awarded by the prize judges to Keyring's Working for Justice project, which supports individuals with learning difficulties in the criminal justice system, and to Junior Smart for his work with gangs to reduce knife crime.
As for Sir Hugh’s other legacy in Ireland? In the few short years following the Patten Commission, admirable strides were made under his leadership in turning a sectarian, divisive police force, with the perception of blood on its hands, into a democratic, accountable police service with the respect of much of the community.
Just as Northern Ireland still has a long journey ahead of it, the police service still faces challenges, and the prospect of further reform, as the remaining Patten Commission recommendations are implemented. Strong foundations have been laid for a solid police service. It is now in the hands of the various players in Northern Ireland to support these foundations, and the continued reform process, to deliver to the people of Northern Ireland a police, at their service. Sir Hugh left Ireland with his reputation enhanced as a “straight copper.” Let me tell you in the Irish context this was no mean achievement.
See also;
2007 Longford Lecture by Professor Mary McAleese, President of Ireland
“Changing History”
http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2007/11/longford-lecture-2007-changing-history.html
2008 Longford Lecture – debate by Sir Ian Blair, Baroness Helena Kennedy QC, Jason Warr and Phil Wheatley
“We Can't Build Our Way Out of Britain's Prisons' Crisis”
http://daithaic.blogspot.com/2008/11/longford-lecture-2008-we-cant-build-our.html
For more about the work of the Longford Trust supporting prison reforms see;
http://www.longfordtrust.org/
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