Plan to end all NI Troubles prosecutions confirmed

The government has confirmed it intends to bring forward legislation to ban all prosecutions related to the Troubles.

Speaking at PMQs, Boris Johnson said the proposals to address the legacy of the past will allow Northern Ireland to "draw a line under the Troubles".

NI Secretary Brandon Lewis told Parliament it was a decision not taken lightly.

But he said it is "the best way to help Northern Ireland move further along the road to reconciliation".

A statement from the government said there would be a "statute of limitations, to apply equally to all Troubles-related incidents".

It is understood it would apply to former members of the security forces as well as ex-paramilitaries.

"We know that the prospect of the end of criminal prosecutions will be difficult for some to accept, and this is not a position that we take lightly," said Mr Lewis.

"But we have arrived at the view that this would be the best way to facilitate an effective information retrieval and provision process, and the best way to help Northern Ireland move further along the road to reconciliation.

"It is a painful recognition of the reality of where we are."

Northern Ireland's five main political parties, the Irish government and several victims' groups have been highly critical of any suggested blanket ban on prosecutions for Trouble-era offences.

DUP leader leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said the "the proposals for an effective amnesty for Troubles-related crimes are totally unacceptable".

But the prime minister defended the government's proposals as "measured and balanced".

He told MPs: "The sad fact remains that there are many members of the armed services who continue to face the threat of vexatious prosecutions well into their 70s and 80s.

"We are finally bringing forward a solution to this problem, to enable the people of Northern Ireland to draw a line under the Troubles and to enable the people of Northern Ireland to move forward."

Earlier today, Simon Coveney, the Irish foreign affairs minister, said the government proposals were not "a fait accompli".

He tweeted that the Irish government has a "very different view" and that he and Brandon Lewis were "committed to an inclusive dialogue to try to agree consensus and that's under way".

"Victims and survivors should not be treated this way," the WAVE Trauma Centre said in on Tuesday when news of the planned statement emerged.

The victims' group added that if Mr Lewis "is serious about effectively dealing with legacy he must talk to those most impacted by pain and trauma".

Reports that the secretary of state was to announce a plan to end Troubles prosecutions also angered relatives of the 1974 Birmingham pub bombings.

Julie Hambleton, whose sister Maxine, was among 21 people killed in the IRA bomb attacks, has written to Prime Minister Boris Johnson to protest against the reported proposal.

"At what point did your government lose all sight of its moral, ethical and judicial backbone? " Ms Hambleton's letter asks.

Victims of the Ballymurphy Massacre in 1971 also expressed anger over the reports.

"We see this as the British government's cynical attempt to bring in an amnesty and a plan to bury its war crimes," said a statement from the families.

"The Ballymurphy Massacre inquest findings in May this year is the perfect example of why there should not be a statue of limitations."

Veterans' Commissioner for Northern Ireland Danny Kinahan said that "veterans on the whole want to ensure that the rule of law is followed and they don't want an amnesty either - they don't want equivalence".

"However, if we all look at this from a society point of view we are not getting anywhere through the courts cases, people aren't getting justice," he added.

"What we have got to do is find a way forward and we know from comments from senior legal people in the past that we are not going to get it through the court system."

Lord Dannatt, a former Army chief, who served in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, described the government's plan as "the least worst solution".

He told BBC Radio 4's Today programme he "welcomed" the move, but that it "isn't the solution to everyone's problems".

"It does provide a mechanism whereby investigations can continue, questioning can continue so that families who lost loved ones during the Troubles get to know what happened but without the fear of prosecution being held above the heads of military veterans," he added.

The expected government statement follows significant recent developments in a number of high-profile Troubles prosecution cases.

In May, two former paratroopers were acquitted of the 1972 murder of Official IRA man Joe McCann after their trial collapsed due to the inadmissibility of prosecution evidence.

Both soldiers had been interviewed by a police legacy unit, the Historical Enquiries Team (HET), in 2010 and it was that evidence which formed a substantial part of the prosecution's case.

But the judge ruled that evidence inadmissible and as the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) did not appeal against that decision, the case could not proceed.

Then, earlier this month, the McCann murder trial collapse had implications for two other high-profile cases - the Bloody Sunday trial and the prosecution for the murder of 15-year-old Daniel Hegarty.

The PPS met the families of Daniel Hegarty and two men killed on Bloody Sunday to explain that given "related evidential features" to the McCann case, prosecutors no longer believed there was a reasonable prospect that key evidence against the soldiers accused of their loved one's murders would be ruled admissible.

The Bloody Sunday case was due to be formally dismissed in court last week, but instead it was adjourned following a legal challenge by a brother of one of the men shot dead on Bloody Sunday.

John Kelly, whose brother Michael was killed on Bloody Sunday, said the reported proposals deny many victims' families justice.

"The message they are sending out is that if you wear a British army uniform you are protected," he told BBC Radio Foyle.

Mary Hamilton was injured in the Claudy bombings in 1972, an attack that claimed the life of her brother-in-law.

The government was effectively saying the lives of those killed before 1998 "were not worth anything", she said.