“Could it be that the government will change the remit again..”

Some interesting speculation in this report by the BBC’s Vincent Kearney on the new Police Ombudsman, Al Hutchinson. He’s looked back at the comments Hutchinson made about ‘policing the past’ in his last report as Policing Oversight Commissioner – comments which were also echoed by other interested parties around that time, as noted here. Whilst Vincent Kearney points to existing cases from the past currently under review, including one which has just been further delayed, the speculation in the article is

Investigating the past wasn’t part of the job specification when Nuala O’Loan took up her post, but was added later.

Could it be that the government will change the remit again, removing that requirement?

That would remove the problem of the past from the Ombudsman’s office, leaving him [Al Hutchinson] to deal with current complaints against the PSNI.

And it would mean attempting to bury the past.. leaving only a public conselling exercise the Eames/Bradley consultative group.

We are reader supported. Donate to keep Slugger lit!

For over 20 years, Slugger has been an independent place for debate and new ideas. We have published over 40,000 posts and over one and a half million comments on the site. Each month we have over 70,000 readers. All this we have accomplished with only volunteers we have never had any paid staff.

Slugger does not receive any funding, and we respect our readers, so we will never run intrusive ads or sponsored posts. Instead, we are reader-supported. Help us keep Slugger independent by becoming a friend of Slugger. While we run a tight ship and no one gets paid to write, we need money to help us cover our costs.

If you like what we do, we are asking you to consider giving a monthly donation of any amount, or you can give a one-off donation. Any amount is appreciated.