THE PSNI is continuing a criminal investigation into issues raised by the BBC Spotlight broadcast on January 7th.
The investigation, which centres on allegations involving former Assembly member and MP Iris Robinson and the DUP leader and First Minister Peter Robinson, is led by Det Chief Supt Roy McComb, head of the PSNI’s Organised Crime Branch, which specialises in complex financial investigations.
The inquiry has resulted in another examination, organised by the Assembly’s Standards and Privileges Committee, being suspended pending the police inquiry.
There were reports at the weekend that Mr Robinson would announce he was returning full-time to the position of First Minister. It was thought he would announce last Monday that he was returning, after talks at Hillsborough on the transfer of justice powers and other issues had been completed. However, these negotiations are still ongoing.
He stood aside from the First Minister’s role on January 11th for up to six weeks at the height of the furore over the Spotlight inquiry into his wife’s sexual and business affairs. Arlene Foster is acting First Minister in the interim.
The police have said their inquiry will seek to establish whether any criminal offence has been committed by Mrs Robinson “and by any other person referred to in the programme”.
On January 11th, the Committee on Standards and Privileges at Stormont received correspondence from Mr Robinson requesting that it examine questions raised by Spotlight. The committee chair, Declan O’Loan, said: “It is clearly in the public interest that an official investigation is carried out in order to establish the full facts in relation to the issues raised in the BBC’s recent Spotlight programme.”
On January 27th this committee agreed that the inquiry it had initiated into the conduct of the Robinsons be suspended pending the outcome of the PSNI inquiry.
The week beforehand, a prominent senior counsel was appointed to offer a legal opinion on allegations that Peter Robinson had broken Assembly ethics over his wife’s financial affairs.
Paul Maguire QC was asked for an opinion from the Departmental Solicitors’ Office regarding the sole allegation levelled by the BBC against Mr Robinson, namely that he knew of his wife’s financial affairs and failed to report them to the relevant authorities. The Department of Finance and Personnel said Mr Maguire’s role would not amount to a formal investigation of the First Minister.
Other inquiries by the Westminster Standards Committee and by Castlereagh Borough Council, of which Mrs Robinson was a member, have also begun.