Accomplice Evidence (Northern Ireland) (Hansard, 3 June 1986)

§ Mr. Seamus Mallon (Newry and Armagh)

I beg to move, That leave be given to bring in a Bill to provide with certain exceptions for a mandatory requirement that an accused person in Northern Ireland shall not be convicted on the uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice. I wish to bring in the Bill because of the grave concern in Northern Ireland about this practice. The concern is not confined to one section of the community. It transcends all political parties and it centres on the abhorrence of a practice which is sending people to prison for long periods on what can only be regarded as less than satisfactory evidence.

On many occasions in Northern Ireland the law has been used for the purpose for which it was never designed—it has been used to solve political problems—and every time that happens confidence in the law has been diminished and eroded. That is not a new experience for us. Some 180 years ago Jefferson warned the American people that if one sacrificed security for justice one would lose both. Tragically that is what we seem to continue to do in the north of Ireland, especially through the use of the supergrass system. The time has come for the Government to grasp this nettle. They must realise their responsibilities and try to resolve this matter in a satisfactory way.

The Bill which I wish to present seeks to abolish the use of uncorroborated evidence as the basis for convictions. The supergrass system places an intolerable burden on the courts and the judges and it distorts the public's perspective of the process of justice. It is almost grotesque to consider some of the elements of the system. Indeed, it is rather like reading a Kafka novel when one examines some of the studied elements of supergrass trials.

I shall give an example. A charge was brought—this is a matter of court record — on the evidence of a supergrass. A person was charged with possession on dates unknown with persons unknown of unexploded and undiscovered bombs. The person charged with that charge, among others, is serving 15 years' imprisonment. I do not think that any society has a right to be complacent when that sort of anomaly arises.

We are never told by those who defend the supergrass system about the periods of remand. If we take 18 months as the average period spent on remand by an accused, we are talking about 1,050 years having been spent on remand before a judge has donned his wig or before a trial has begun. These are grotesque figures which must be challenged, and challenged in the only place where it is worth while to do so—on the Floor of the House.

There are many reasons why I must challenge the supergrass system. The first is that the evidence is dangerous. Judges challenge and make comments about the supergrasses, the accomplices, and we must appreciate the way in which ordinary people regard the system. In the Black case, for example, the accused were sentenced to 4,000 years' imprisonment, five of them receiving life sentences. The judge described the supergrass in that case as an active and wholehearted member of the IRA—up to his neck in terrorist activity and a dangerous and ruthless criminal. 749 Yet sentences of 4,000 years' imprisonment were imposed on his word.

The Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland described the evidence of another supergrass and said that it would be a perversion of justice according to law, so contradictory, bizarre and in some respects incredible was McGrady's evidence and so devious and deliberately evasive was his manner of giving it. That is the way in which he described him, yet he proceeded, on his evidence, to sentence three people to long prison sentences.

In the latest example—the Kirkpatrick supergrass trial — the judge described the witness as being very often mistaken and unreliable. He said that his evidence was "hard to reconcile" and sometimes deliberately false. What did he do? Twenty-seven people were convicted on that evidence, and they are still in prison.

The performance of some of the supergrasses, as my hon. Friend the Member for Foyle (Mr. Hume) has confirmed, is less than impressive. They are criminals and in many instances they have demanded and obtained immunity, which is astounding. The core of the issue, however, is that in the north of Ireland, because of a decision of this Parliament, there is an abnormal judicial system. There is no jury. Only one person makes the decision. I ask one simple question: If a prosecution has to convince 12 people in one jurisdiction and only one man in another, in which place would the average man wish to have his trial held? In which place would we all prefer to be tried if that were the choice facing us? These questions put the issue into perspective because in reality the problem will never be overcome while we put such a tremendous charge on a judge, who has to warn himself that it is dangerous to convict on uncorroborated evidence. These mental gymnastics should not be the basis of law.

Immunity is something which worries many people, and it has desperately worried those in Northern Ireland. Here, where these laws are made, it might be worth considering again the words of Chief Justice Hale in the 1600s, who said: The truth is that more mischief hath come to good men by these kinds of approvement by the false declarations of villains, than benefits to the public by the discovery and conviction of real offenders. That is something that we should remember when we give immunity to someone like Grimley, who was described by Mr. Justice Gibson as having little or no regard for the truth and who gave evidence such that one could place no reliance on it. At the end of the trial, however, Mr. Grimley went straight through the doorway of the court with immunity, and he is not the only person to have done it. To date 15 have been granted immunity, and we want it stopped.

750 This is not something which happens only occasionally in Northern Ireland for it is now a system. It is a system within a system. Much as it is denied and disputed, the fact remains that there must be political connivance, and judicial connivance at the highest level, to allow this abomination to continue. In the four years since the system began there have been 10 supergrass trials and over 700 have been charged with multiple offences on supergrass evidence. About 100 — they are all members of the nationalist community, by the way—are still in prison as a result of that evidence. We shall have to live with the consequences and we must examine the issue extremely carefully.

I am aware, Mr. Speaker, of your concern about the time that is taken in debates such as this, so I shall conclude quickly. My Bill, which I hope to be able to bring to the Floor of the House, proposes quite simply that an accused person in Northern Ireland shall not be convicted on the uncorroborated evidence of an accomplice. The Bill would define "corroboration" as independent admissible evidence which confirms in some material particular not only the evidence that the offence has been committed but that the accused person committed it. If the only evidence against an accused is that of a supergrass and no corroborative evidence can be found in the strict sense of the term, the accused should be acquitted. Natural justice requires that the guilt of an accused must be established beyond reasonable doubt. When we are dealing with witnesses that are as notoriously unreliable as supergrasses, it is clear that we must adhere to that criterion.

I leave the final word with Lord Gifford, who produced a remarkably clear analysis of the problem. The message of Lord Gifford that I would like to leave with the House is this: Parliament has legislated for an exceptional form of trial procedure in Northern Ireland, dispensing with the most important protection for the innocent in our judicial system. Parliament should also legislate to provide safeguards for the Diplock system, by a simple measure which provides that in a Diplock court there must as a matter of law be corroboration of the evidence of an accomplice.