While they would seem worlds apart, their fates were all the more alike. This refers of course to the tragedies which befell young Arlene Arkinson and Richard Kerr starting when both of them were youths and culminating in two destroyed lives. Arlene was a pleasant teenage girl who seemed well-liked by her family and friends in Castlederg, County Tyrone. Richard was a young boy who was trying to make the best of a life separated from his family whilst in the care of the state under the auspices of social services in Belfast. They did not have all that much in common by way of their generalities in life, what they do share in common is their grotesquely unlawful treatment at the hands of the state authorities.Richard Kerr was a resident of the notorious Kincora Boy’s Home and Williamson House in 1970’s Belfast. In these facilities he was the victim of known sexual predators and perverts who were informants and agents of the security services, some of whom even had criminal convictions for child abuse (such as Richard’s Doctor, Morris Fraser, who made him strip to photograph his naked body). These people acted with legal immunity and impunity towards the vulnerable.
Arlene was a teenage schoolgirl who was never seen alive again in 1994 after leaving home apparently to attend a disco with a person she believed to be her ‘friend’ and Robert Howard. The latter was the then partner of Arlene’s ‘friend’s’ mother and was a brutal child rapist with a known history to the authorities of sexual misconduct.
Arlene was a teenage schoolgirl who was never seen alive again in 1994 after leaving home apparently to attend a disco with a person she believed to be her ‘friend’ and Robert Howard. The latter was the then partner of Arlene’s ‘friend’s’ mother and was a brutal child rapist with a known history to the authorities of sexual misconduct.
When the Kincora scandal broke in 1980-81, the three staff there were eventually placed on trial for child sexual abuse. All were to plead guilty to avoid lengthy cross-examination and discovery or disclosure of illicit activities, including their relationship with the Police Special Branch and Intelligence Services. The Court was never told, in so far as we can know, about the three abusers having been ‘agents’ and or ‘informants’. The subsequent government inquiries set up to review the rape and torture of children (including Richard) in their care all neglected to disclose this vital information, including as recent as 2017 at the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry. This perverted the course of justice in denying Richard and other victims the transparency as well as accountability they suffered so long for.
The subsequent government inquiries set up to review the rape and torture of children (including Richard) in their care all neglected to disclose this vital information, including as recent as 2017 at the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry.
Similarly, when Robert Howard eventually was charged and put on trial for the murder of Arlene Arkinson in 2005, the Crown Court was not told either that Howard was an ‘informant’ for the RUC or that he was serving a sentence for the 2001 murder of a young girl in England, Hannah Williams. On this basis, that is the concealment of a murder conviction, the jury in Belfast’s Crown Court could not reach a ‘guilty’ verdict beyond a ‘reasonable doubt’ as the threshold due to a then lack of evidence.
However, the Arkinson family courageously and resiliently fought the actions and inactions by elements of the state. Just like with the Kincora probe, the Police in the Republic of Ireland (who had a very “close” relationship with their RUC counter-parts) neglected to provide relevant information for the investigation and Inquest into Arlene’s murder. When the Coroner was able to conduct an Inquest, a Northern Ireland Office Minister, Ben Wallace, mysteriously applied for a national security “Public Interest Immunity” Certificate in 2016 – the legal instrument which prevents media reporting and disclosure of certain evidence. At the very least, the purpose of this was to disguise the fact that Howard (who died in jail for the Williams murder before the Arkinson Inquest) was a paid ‘informant’ of the Police in Northern Ireland. The argument usually is that in disclosing such information it would denigrate confidence in the administration of justice. Equally, the same argument could be said for the Police and Minister even applying for such a “certificate” – would anyone feel more reassured by this? After all, what does a brutal child murderer really have to do with “national security” anyway? Or is “national security” perhaps just a by-word in ‘polite circles’ for “crimes of state”?
The real reason for “Public Interest Immunity” applications in the case of Kincora and also of Arlene Arkinson, is the total collapse in confidence the truth would bring about for some mechanisms of policing and justice. That is, those tasked with enforcing the rule of law recruited and paid people who were involved in heinous crimes against young people, while the Police turned a blind eye in exchange for murky information on paramilitaries.
The PSNI are on record as refusing freedom of information requests to university academics on convicted abusers like Doctor Morris Fraser – literally for reasons of “national security”. It will be interesting to observe the High Court civil action which Richard Kerr is taking against various government agencies, including the Police and Ministry of Defence. Let us see if the same entities also plead “national security” to conceal was is really their indictable act of ‘misfeasance in a public office’.
OTHER STORIES BY DONAL LAVERY:-
The Richard Kerr-Kincora case has become a transatlantic campaign for justice.
Sir Jeffrey Donaldson’s dubious former associates.
