SAOIRSE32

Adam Fresco, Crime Correspondent
The Times
29 Dec 2008

Police have turned to “supergrasses” once again in the fight against organised crime, reviving a practice that was discredited in the 1980s after many convictions were quashed on appeal.

Informers who have provided crucial evidence to the Metropolitan Police “supergrass unit” have received significant reductions in their sentences.

One supergrass had his sentence cut from 60 years to only four, The Times has learnt, after giving evidence that helped to convict several high-profile criminals.

The unit, officially known as the Debrief Unit, is tackling those at the top end of the criminal scale who are involved in murders, drug and weapon smuggling and people-trafficking.

The unit claims that the scheme has had “a major impact on criminal networks in London”, being aimed at 30 leading gang bosses.

The term supergrass was coined in the 1970s to describe informers who helped to convict senior figures in gangland London.

The practice was used widely in Northern Ireland in the 1980s by the Royal Ulster Constabulary, which sought information from paramili-taries who had been arrested in exchange for immunity from prosecution.

More controversially, payments in cash were made in return for information. Dozens of IRA members were jailed after they were convicted on the strength of intelligence provided by informers. However, many convictions were overturned on appeal because the evidence was considered to be unsafe.

The Metropolitan Police, which is currently without a permanent commissioner after the resignation of Sir Ian Blair, accepts that it must do everything it can to make sure that the high-risk scheme is not open to the abuses of the past.

Senior officers, who declined to say how many informers have helped the police, say that the current system is subject to much closer scrutiny than in the past.

Evidence put forward by a supergrass must be considered by the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS) before a deal is agreed. The vetting process can take several months and potential informers are obliged to surrender any financial proceeds that they have accrued from their criminal activities.

They must also admit all past crimes. The CPS will then decide whether or not to prosecute. However, if convicted, they will not go to jail - for their own security - but instead serve their sentences in secure premises, albeit subject to restrictions similar to those that would be experienced in prison.

Supergrasses must agree to give evidence in person in trials against their former colleagues and do not have recourse to special measures designed to protect their identity in the courtroom. Many choose to join the Witness Protection Scheme.

Detective Superintendent Barry Phillips, head of the Debrief Unit, admits that there were many failings during the 1980s. “We became sloppy. We cut corners, we didn’t corroborate evidence, we didn’t get supporting evidence. The defence teams were becoming more astute at defending cases.

“This brought the whole supergrass system into disrepute. Then, when the CPS was created during the latter half of the 1980s it said it would not touch any supergrasses.

“It had become discredited - the whole process of taking an individual and turning him into a Crown prosecution witness, who will stand and give evidence against criminal associates.”

Detective Inspector Tony Moore, from the unit, said: “We get some people just coming to us off the street saying they have been threatened by a gang they are involved with and they have information, but they have to incriminate themselves and what they say has to check out.

“We get referrals every week. It ranges from an offender who wants to give Queen’s Evidence in a simple trial to those offenders who are in prison serving serious sentences and have had plenty of time to reflect and decide to offer information that might solve more robberies or murders.”

Not everyone is accepted into the system, however.

Mr Moore said: “Because of costs and witness protection, if we get someone who wants to go into the system we will look at the potential for them to attack the system and settle old scores.

“They have to admit to all previous criminality, even if it is something they have already been found not guilty of in a court.”

Deals have been agreed with men and women who had committed serious crimes, including murder, Mr Moore said.

“We have to balance what we do with families that have had someone murdered. They want to see a person who killed their loved one given a big sentence but if they help us to convict others and get a reduction on their sentence it may mean that several other families can get closure.”

The future of the supergrass was cemented in 2005 with the introduction of the Serious and Organised Crime and Police Act (Socpa), providing a legal framework for using testimony from “assisting offenders”.

Mr Phillips still prefers the term supergrass. “It’s a word that lets you zoom straight in and understand what is going on. It’s an old-fashioned term for an old-fashioned policing method that is now coming back into vogue.”

Irish Times

LORD JUSTICE BASIL KELLY: LORD JUSTICE Kelly, who has died aged 88, was a former attorney general in Northern Ireland and also served as Unionist MP for Mid-Down at Stormont between 1964 and 1972.

He once wore a bullet-proof vest and was guarded by SAS men because of IRA threats to his life. That was in 1983 when he presided at the trial in Belfast of 38 people implicated in Provisional IRA terrorism. He jailed 22 of the defendants for more than 4,000 years.

Lord Justice Kelly: guarded by SAS because of IRA threats

They were convicted on the evidence of a so-called supergrass, Christopher Black. During the trial he wore a bullet-proof vest and was protected by two policemen who stood on either side of him with rifles at the ready.

While in London to prepare his judgment, he was given round-the-clock protection by heavily armed SAS officers.

Eighteen of those convicted were freed three years later when they had their convictions overturned.

Sir Brian Kerr, Lord Chief Justice for Northern Ireland, in the course of a tribute said: “While maintaining the highest professional standards, Basil Kelly’s ability to see the law as a tool for the alleviation of people’s problems rather than an end in itself distinguished his practice as a barrister and his career as a judge.”

Veteran court reporter Ivan McMichael said: “He will be remembered for his outstanding contribution to the legal scene, not least while discharging the office of attorney general, and then on the High Court bench, where he ended his career as a lord justice of appeal.”

Born in Monaghan in 1920, he was the only son of Thomas William Kelly and his wife Emily Frances (née Donaldson). Educated at Methodist College, Belfast, he studied law at Trinity College Dublin and did his Bar studies at Queen’s University Belfast, where he gained an LLB, before being called to the Bar in 1944.

In 1953 he was a member of the defence team at the trial of Ian Hay Gordon, who was charged with the murder in 1952 of Patricia Curran, daughter of Mr Justice Curran, at Whiteabbey, Co Antrim. Over 40,000 people were interviewed during the investigation of one of the North’s most notorious non-political murders. Gordon was found guilty but insane.

Kelly was appointed a QC in 1958. Having acted as senior crown counsel, he became the North’s attorney general in 1968. He had a key role as law officer of the Northern Ireland government in the civil rights period and in the months preceding the imposition of direct rule.

In May 1971 opposition MPs accused him of showing political bias in ordering court prosecutions.

He was made a judge of the Northern Ireland High Court in 1973.

In 1986 he sentenced four UDR men to life imprisonment for the murder of Adrian Carroll in Armagh in 1983.

In 1992 he ruled that undercover agents could not “expect to be immune” from punishment. This was in the case of Brian Nelson, who pleaded guilty to five counts of conspiracy to murder and other related offences.

In 1995 he tried two British soldiers, Mark Wright and James Fisher, for the murder of Peter McBride in the New Lodge area of Belfast in 1992. They were convicted and given life sentences. Released in 1998, the two men were welcomed back into the army to resume their careers, a decision that caused widespread public anger.

Off the bench, he had a great passion for golf, although on one occasion he could be excused regret when an errant shot by another player at the annual Bar outing struck him on the ankle, breaking it.

For a couple of weeks afterwards he hobbled into court on a stick with the ankle in plaster.

He is survived by his wife, Pamela Colmer, whom he married in 1957, and their daughter, Caroline.

Sir John William Basil Kelly: born May 10th, 1920; died December 5th, 2008