A Better Way for Victims

Belfast Telegraph, Friday October 22nd, 2021

Letters

Alison Morris’s harrowing account of the death of John Pat Cunningham in today’s newspaper acknowledges that the possibility of securing convictions in many historic cases relating to the Troubles is becoming increasingly remote. This is yet another case, as demonstrated by the acquittal of soldiers charged with the death of Joe McCann earlier this year, that the high standards of proof required in murder cases are often not achievable decades after the event.

Ms Morris rightly says that, ‘There needs to be a better way than constantly retraumatising victim, giving them a false hope of justice which will always be just out of reach… But we can have a proper information recovery mechanism that gives acknowledgement to those who have lost [cases] without continually retraumatising them with false promises and false hope.’

We believe that the Truth Recovery Process offers such an approach. It does involve an amnesty but it is one conditional on the former combatants involved in any death or serious injury of victims engaging with them and, or their families in good faith. We believe that such a process will be difficult and traumatic for all those involved, but so are trials that end in an acquittal, nolle prosequi or, in this case the death of the accused from natural causes.

If nothing else, the death of Denis Hutchings is a warning that time is running out and that the odds against victims or their families achieving Truth and Justice through the courts are rapidly lengthening. It also has the advantage that the choice of entering our process or continuing to pursue cases through the courts remains with those who have suffered injury, or death or the loss of loved ones rather than the government.

We hope shortly to hold a Webinar on the legal aspects of our process and draft legislation that would allow it to be incorporated in the Stormont House Agreement through the Independent Commission on Information Retrieval. We will also be launching a new journal, Legacy Matters on December 3rd in the Linen Hall Library.

Our proposal is challenging but that is all the more reason why it now needs to be addressed after so many initiatives that have failed.

Anyone looking for further information can do so at http://truthrecoveryprocess.ie  or by contacting truthrecoveryireland@gmail.com.

Padraig Yeates,

Secretary,

Truth Recovery Process