The murder of Glenn Quinn was a despicable crime committed by wicked thugs. All right minded people will wish the PSNI well in bringing those responsible to justice and I extend my sincere sympathies to his bereaved family.
In my view, the decision of the PSNI not to knock Glenn’s door and tell him of the information they were in possession of was the wrong one.
However, I believe the Police Ombudsman’s* recommendation that an individual police officer be disciplined is also flawed and that their recommendation highlights the culture of individual blame that stubbornly pervades that organisation.
The facts of this case are stark and indeed anyone reading or listening to the media reporting about it will be understandably perplexed and angry as to why the PSNI did not pass on intelligence to Mr Quinn that stated he was going to be shot dead.
To understand how that (incorrect) decision was arrived at, we need to understand the legal and policy framework that the PSNI and other police services operate within when managing such information and intelligence. By understanding this framework, it is possible to see why the PSNI did not tell Mr Quinn of the specific threat to his life.
The legal obligations on UK police services (and indeed An Garda Síochána and other European police services) to effectively manage threats to life flows from a European Court of Human Rights case called Osman v UK 1988. The Strasbourg Court held that the police have a legal duty to take reasonable steps to protect an individual when there is a real, credible and imminent threat to their life.
The words, ‘real, credible and imminent’ are absolutely crucial to understanding both this wider issue and how this particular case tragically unfolded. A police service may have information that indicates someone is at physical risk of serious criminal harm, ranging from a crime report of stalking (as was the case in Osman) to intelligence of a threat from a criminal gang.
The Osman case sensibly set a high bar for when the police have a legal duty initiate professional threat to life management. This is sensible because police resources like those of health systems for example, have to be carefully managed and prioritised according to threat, risk and harm.
This is why the PSNI policy (and other police services) formal ‘threat to life management protocols’ are only initiated when a threat to someone’s life is ‘real’, ‘verified’ ‘credible’ and ‘imminent’. That is the legal standard.
However, there is deep flaw in how this policy is operationalised in practice and one that I raised whilst in service. In Northern Ireland, there are many hundreds of intelligence messages every year that someone may be at risk of ‘paramilitary’ attack, a lot of these are anonymous and emanate from the independent charity Crimestoppers.
That is exactly how the information about the threat of a fatal attack on Glenn Quinn was received. Such anonymous intelligence, in the absence of other verifying information will not meet the high threshold of being a ‘real, credible and imminent threat to life’.
The Osman legal test (further developed in subsequent case law) is very high, there must be a real and verified imminency of an attack by person(s) capable and intending to cause serious physical harm. The problem is when this very high threshold is not met and thereby the formal legal ‘Osman obligations’are not triggered. A police service could (wrongly in my view) decide not to inform an identified individual of uncorroborated information they possess, thinking this is what the law is telling them or to prevent the resource implications of full threat to life management.
This is akin to confusing apples with pears, except a lot more dangerous. Clearly resources should be focused on taking a range of preventative measures to protect those who are at the greatest risk. So when the high level ‘Osman obligations’ are triggered by a credible, verified and imminent threat to life, that threat should rightly be professionally managed by the PSNI under the threat to life policies and protocols.
Such management involves a senior officer considering and implementing counter measures such as extra patrols, crime prevention measures at the house and other steps right up to and including permanent rehousing under various schemes.
However, when the high threshold is not met (such as with anonymous standalone intelligence), the PSNI should still in my view (save for exceptional documented reasons) tell the person to whom the threat information relates of its actual existence. This can be done without initiating the full threat management process and supported with basic crime prevention advice.
Any citizen would want to know that such information exists about them and be able to take common sense precautions as they see fit. They may also know what led to the threat and assist police with further assessing or investigating it.
If such information existed about me (“Jon Burrows will be shot sometime in the next week ”) no matter how unverified or incredible it might, I would want to know about it and make a personal and informed decision about my response.
Being in a command role in Derry/Londonderry and Lurgan for over 12 years I managed hundred of such threats of all grades. Like many of my colleagues, I took the decision that officers passed on unverified information, even though the formal threat management threshold wasn’t met. Some senior colleagues were chastised for doing this by Headquaters, who mistakenly felt it was a breach of policy.
I myself was reminded of ‘correct’ procedure on several occasions, but had the professional confidence to deviate from it.
However in such cases, the PSNI corporately (including its Legal Services Branch who advises on policy) was wrongly conflated advising someone about low grade information under general policing duties (both common law and as laid down in s32 Police (NI) Act 2000), with the initiation of the formalised threat to life management processes which should be confined to the high Osman threshold.
And herein lies the corporate learning. The high threshold under Osman (and by extension the PSNI policy which reflects it) should not dictate a binary choice between a full threat to life management process and doing nothing. You can knock a door and have a discreet conversation, as should have occurred in the Glenn Quinn case and still decide that full threat management is not warranted.
Because information or intelligence is unverified does not mean it is not accurate. The flip side however is that because information turns out to be accurate, does not mean when it was received it was verified or objectively credible. These are the complexities often missed by the media and not appreciated by the Ombudsman.
Policing nationally in recent year’s lost much of its common sense and has become befuddled by labyrinthian policies that were intended to keep it right. Senior managers, devoid of operational experience and honed police instincts, push its officers into rigid policy that too often means they hit a target but miss the point. In policing this can be fatal.
So as this blog concludes it raises two final points.
Firstly, it is right the Duty Inspector in the tragic case of Glenn Quinn case was not disciplined. He/she is a victim of a corporate approach that confuses the difference between passing on low level unverified information with the full rigours of Osman threshold threat to life management.
It is concerning that our Ombudsman as an organisation is still wanting to perpetuate the blame game in such cases, instead of focusing on corporate learning. Doing so is not only unfair, but risks deflecting from the real underlying problems, negates organisational learns and thereby increases the risk of a mistake repetition.
Secondly, my worry is that the pendulum of learning in policing tends to overcorrect. The worst outcome is that the PSNI now initiates full threat management protocols for every piece of anonymous intelligence that states an individual may be harmed. Yes, tell the people concerned as a matter of common sense; but focus professionally managed counter measures on those at greatest risk. A failure to triage increases the collective risk of harm to us all.
Policing is a tough and complex profession and its practitioners make thousands of critical and highly consequentially decisions week in, week out. When officers and staff act honestly and honourably they ought to be supported; when an organisation needs to learn then that is what should happen. The PSNI needs to swiftly refine how it handles these matters and the Police Ombudsman needs to reflect on why a middle manager was blamed for an organisational flaw.
I finish as I started, expressing hope that the wicked people who murdered Glenn Quinn are caught and extending my thoughts and sympathies with his bereaved family. It is right the PSNI are apologising to them for not passing on the information they had and undoubtedly the ‘what if’ has added to their awful anguish.
END.
*References to the Police Ombudsman relate to the organisation and not the individual office holder.
Jon Burrows is a retired PSNI officer with a Masters in Human Rights Law (LLM) that specialised on policing Article 2 ECHR Right to Life obligations.
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