Brecknell v. the United Kingdom (dec.)

Information Note on the Court’s case-law No. 95

March 2007

Brecknell v. the United Kingdom (dec.) - 32457/04

Decision 6.3.2007 [Section IV]

Article 2

Positive obligations

Effectiveness and independence of police investigation into the death of the applicant’s husband in an attack by loyalist gunmen: admissible

The applicant’s husband was one of three men killed in an attack carried out by loyalist gunmen at a bar in Northern Ireland in 1975. Although responsibility for the incident was subsequently claimed by an illegal loyalist paramilitary organisation, the police were initially unable to identify any individual suspect. In the late 1970s they finally arrested two people, a reserve officer in the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and a woman, who admitted to having driven three people (one of whom had since died) to the scene. However, they denied any involvement in the killings or knowledge of the identity of the killers. They were charged with failing to disclose information relating to an offence, but the Director of Public Prosecutions subsequently decided not to pursue the charges, inter alia, on account of the delay in bringing the case to trial, the unlikelihood of a custodial sentence and the lack of any reasonable prospect of securing a conviction. During this same period, a police officer called John Weir was convicted of murder in a separate case. Following his release from prison on licence in the early 1990s, he made allegations of RUC and Ulster Defence Regiment collusion with loyalist paramilitaries in the 1970s and gave the names of four people whom he alleged were responsible for the attack in which the applicant’s husband had died. In 1999 an Irish television channel broadcast a programme in which Weir repeated his allegations. These then became the subject of police investigations on both sides of the Irish border, although the police investigation in Northern Ireland was of limited scope as it focused on determining whether the allegations were sufficiently credible to require a full investigation. Although a series of interviews were conducted under caution, no charges were preferred and it was decided that no final view could be taken until Weir had been interviewed. That interview did not take place, however, as his whereabouts were unknown. Following a report by the RUC’s successor body, the Police Service Northern Ireland (PSNI) in June 2005, the case was referred to the Historical Enquiry Team for further assessment. Its investigations are continuing.

The applicant complained under Article 2 of the lack of an effective official investigation into the circumstances of her husband’s death after John Weir made his allegations of RUC involvement in 1999. In particular, she complained of the RUC/PSNI’s lack of independence, of the ineffectiveness of the investigation into the credibility of Weir’s allegations, and of unwarranted delays, a lack of public scrutiny and insufficient access to the investigation materials.

Admissible under Articles 2 and 13.

© Council of Europe/European Court of Human Rights
This summary by the Registry does not bind the Court.

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