July 3rd 2018
Sir,
In his attempt to whiten the name of the RUC, former PSNI and RUC Assistant Chief Constable Alan McQuillan forgets the evidence of one of his own officers (letters July 2nd).
I refer to Into the Dark (Gill, 2006) by 30-year RUC veteran Johnston Brown. The book opens with Brown suffering a sustained savage assault, from his colleagues, in a police station. Brown’s ‘crime’ was to have arrested a five-man armed UVF gang. Brown later captured more illegally held arms, that were returned immediately to their loyalist ‘owners’. He detailed how his attempts to bring to justice the killer of solicitor Pat Finnucane were frustrated by the same corrupt RUC elements. He demonstrated that his RUC colleagues tried to have him arrested, even killed, for doing his job.
Perhaps former Assistant Chief Constable McQuillan can tell us how many of the officers Johnston Brown complained of assisted in the RUC’s ‘transformation’ into the PSNI, if indeed, as McQuillan declares, the RUC was not disbanded.
When Mary Lou McDonald raised questions in the Dáil about Drew Harris becoming the new Garda Commissioner she was doing her job, her democratic duty. I am reinforced in my opinion if the new commissioner shares his former colleague Alan McQuillan’s view.
Yours sincerely
Tom Cooper
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