Successful Challenges to the Office of the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland

Abstract Chapter 13 focuses on investigations into terrorist informers conducted by successive holders of the position of Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland. The ‘public statement’ that resulted from the Ombudsman’s Office Operation Ballast investigation revealed enough information about a particular terrorist informer and the way informers are used that it caused considerable backlash from former police officers on security grounds. The way the ombudsmen have done their work has been ill-received at times, not only by police officers but also by survivors and victims’ families. Further, its work has been challenged in court and even overturned and redone. One of the case studies in this chapter—the office’s investigations into the 1994 murders at the Heights Bar in Loughinisland—is an extreme example, with the office’s original and replacement statements both being challenged in court, and a journalistic investigation into the office also taking place, which itself became the subject of police action and in turn became the subject of legal action.