Two investigations have been ordered into the withholding and destruction of evidence connected to one of the so-called shoot-to-kill incidents of the Troubles in Northern Ireland.
The region’s director of public prosecutions has instructed the chief constable and the police ombdusman to launch inquiries into how evidence, including two secret tapes, was lost after an incident in County Armagh in 1982.
The case involves the shooting of two people by members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) at a hayshed near Lurgan in 1982. During the RUC operation, teenager Michael Tighe was shot dead and Martin McCauley was wounded.
Barra McGrory, the DPP for Northern Ireland, held out the possibility that there could be arrests or prosecutions in relation to the disappearance of the evidence.
The hayshed shootings were investigated as part of Sir John Stalker’s inquiry into allegations that members of the security forces, in this case the RUC, were carrying out a shoot-to-kill policy against republican suspects.
On the ruling from the Criminal Case Review Commission, which quashed a conviction against Martin McAuley, the DPP said: “I have concluded that I must exercise my power to request that the chief constable and the police ombudsman investigate matters which may involve offences committed against the law of Northern Ireland.
“The actions of police and security service personnel in relation to the concealment and destruction of potential evidence requires further investigation as does the identification of all those involved in such actions.
“The test for prosecution will be applied in relation to any evidence uncovered through the course of the investigation.”
Stalker and his colleague Colin Sampson discovered in 1985 that MI5 had received the tapes from the army and then destroyed them.
