The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) has apologised to the group known as the “Hooded Men”, who were tortured in custody in 1971.
The 14 individuals were arrested and interned without trial and subjected to a series of controversial interrogation techniques during questioning by the police and British army.
These included hooding and being forced to stand in the “stress position”, to listen to white noise, and being deprived of sleep, food and water, and being thrown from helicopters hovering near the ground which they believed were high in the air.
In 2021 the UK Supreme Court ruled the PSNI was wrong not to investigate allegations of torture and said the “deplorable” treatment of the Hooded Men would be “characterised as torture by today’s standards.” This had been administered as “deliberate policy” by state agencies, the judges said.
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On Tuesday representatives of the Hooded Men received the apology during a private meeting with senior police officers in Belfast.
It also emerged that an apology was hand-delivered to one of the Hooded Men, Joe Clarke, last week, days before his death on Monday.
In a statement released by the PSNI after Tuesday’s meeting, the PSNI said it had expressed sympathy to the family of Mr Clarke and had written to “a number of individuals, including the late Mr Clarke and the next of kin of deceased individuals of the Hooded Men.”
[ 2021: The Irish Times view on the ‘Hooded Men’: closer to justiceOpens in new window ]
[ 2015: The torture centre: Northern Ireland’s ‘hooded men’Opens in new window ]
The head of the PSNI’s Legacy Investigation & Disclosure Branch, Detective Chief Superintendent Ian Saunders, said in the letter “we have acknowledged the findings of the United Kingdom Supreme Court that, by today’s standards, the treatment of these men at that time would likely be characterised as torture.
“The Police Service of Northern Ireland has formally apologised for the actions and omissions of police officers involved in their treatment whilst in police custody in 1971.
“The Police Service recognise the significant step taken today in issuing this apology.
“It is our view that this was the right thing to do to help give the Hooded Men and their families recognition about how they were treated,” he said.
Solicitor Darragh Mackin of Phoenix Law, who represents many of the Hooded Men and their families, described it as a “seismic development in a seismic case” and said the apology was the result of “weeks of intense negotiation” in advance of Mr Clarke’s death.
“In the last days of his life, Mr Clarke was finally delivered closure in the form of an apology, for which he had long since campaigned.”
Mr Mackin said that amid the ongoing controversy over how to address the legacy of the Troubles, the case of the Hooded Men was “the pin up of due process, humanity and resolution coming together under one umbrella.
“This case is an example of why the efforts of the British government to brush the legacy of the past under the carpet will never, and can never, work,” he said.
He criticised the “silence” by the UK government, saying it and the Ministry of Defence should now also issue an apology and the move by the PSNI “proves nobody is above the law.”
Two of the Hooded Men, Liam Shannon and Jim Auld, described the apology as “too little too late” and had only been delivered “on the back of latest legal challenges against the police over their failure to investigate the criminality of the State”.
They said the apology demonstrated the need for a similar gesture by the UK government.
“That same torture was planned and executed from the very top, including the then prime minister,” they said in a statement. “We now call upon the current prime minister and the government to do the right thing and apologise.”
