Nuala O'Loan notes, with mock disapproval, that when Brenda Fricker played
her in the film 'Omagh', she dressed all wrong: "She wore her blouses open
at the neck, whereas mine are closed or have only one button undone."
That's very much in keeping with the image of the woman who polices the
police – a stern, no-nonsense type, always waiting to pounce on anyone
putting a foot wrong. Even the toughest officers, including former Chief
Constable, Sir Ronnie Flanagan, are said to be scared of her.
The Police Ombudsman laughs as she recalls working late in the office one
night when an officer phoned in to report an incident in which police had
opened fire. Thinking the female voice at the other end was a secretary, he
relayed events in a relaxed manner, with colleagues in the background adding
in bits.
"Then, he asked who he was speaking to. 'Nuala O'Loan', I said. There was
silence. 'Could you repeat that?', he asked. I could almost hear him
thinking, 'Oh my goodness, it's HER. Did I say anything that could get me
into trouble?'"
There will be lots of trouble to tackle over coming months. Complaints of
police behaviour during recent loyalist violence are gathering on O'Loan's
desk. "We expect to be very busy," she says. Fifteen hour days are already
the norm. "I don't work fast enough for what I've to get through," she
confides over raspberry-and-vanilla tea.
"But people trust me. They know if the police acted wrongly, I'll say so.
And if I say police acted properly, they'll accept that too." Her office is
perhaps the only shining post-Agreement success – 83% of Catholics and 75%
of Protestants believe she's fair.
Such is the faith in O'Loan's ability to right wrongs that people call her
complaining about traffic wardens and dentists. Her powers and resources
would make those holding other police forces to account "green with envy",
she admits.
The North is the only jurisdiction in the world where all complaints against
police are independently investigated. She has a "robust relationship" with
Chief Constable Hugh Orde: "He mightn't always like what I say, and I'm not
always enamoured of him, but he makes himself available to me. He never
hides."
She knows many officers think her "anti-police, out to get them, and as a
woman I couldn't possibly understand security matters". So she takes to the
streets with them. "I've been driving around in Land Rovers in the middle of
the night. I was out until 3 a.m. in Magherafelt. Officers' perceptions
change after meeting me."
At first glance, she's a conservative, Catholic mother of five, married to
an SDLP school-teacher. Then, she jolts you: "Declan and I weren't long
married and we wanted an adventure. We gave up our jobs, rented out the
house, and set off for a new life in the African bush. We had a child and I
was seven months' pregnant."
She recalls, very matter-of-fact, how the plane to London flew into a
thunderstorm for three hours. "I got ill and was drifting in and out of
consciousness. I spent the night in hospital in London. Next morning, I
boarded the flight for Nairobi anyway."
Wasn't it a foolish escapade? "Well, cholera and typhoid were rampant and I
couldn't have vaccinations because I was pregnant. I wasn't worried about
giving birth there. Women have babies in the bush all the time"
It was, she admits, an "unpleasant" experience: "After labour, the doctor
came to stitch me up. He was wearing a smart suit. Then, he put on a gown
stained with blood from hundreds of deliveries. I thought I'd get the fever
and die. I got malaria – the hospital windows were open and I was bitten by
mosquitoes.
"My baby was fine but the child of a woman who had given birth before me was
put in an incubator. The next day, another baby needed the incubator and the
first baby was taken out. It died and was buried in the garden."
The casual nature of life and death in Africa, affected her deeply: "But I'm
glad I went. You have to leave your comfort zone, do things you never
thought you would. Otherwise, you become smug and useless."
In November, O'Loan will be five years in the job she never expected to get
– "I wasn't part of the establishment. I thought it would go to a man in a
grey suit, a retired High Court judge, but maybe the salary wasn't big
enough."
She deals with 400 complaints a month against police. She treasures letters
from families she has helped like that of Samuel Devenney, a father of nine,
who died three months after a savage police beating in his Derry home in
1969.
His children, who had been present, were also assaulted. "Here was a family
who had suffered this great injustice, who been marginalized for decades and
disadvantaged in employment," says O'Loan. "The investigation didn't lead to
prosecutions but an apology was secured from police which helped bring the
Devenneys closure."
Then, there was the 13-year-old chased by police who had seen another boy
pass him something suspiciously. "His friend ran away but he fell. He was
charged with resisting arrest, obstructing an officer, and there was the
possibility of a drugs' charge," says O'Loan.
"The boy had asthma – that's why he fell. His friend had passed him an
inhaler. Without our investigation, he could have had a criminal record,
affecting his chances of employment or going to America."
Her investigations have helped police too. A mentally unbalanced woman
alleged an officer had raped her in the back of a car. "We asked for her
garments from that night. She brought us in brand new underwear."
Another woman "remembered" that the detective investigating her drug rape
allegations was the rapist. "It was Christmas and we had to tell that
officer and his family of her claims. It was a horrible business but we soon
got to the bottom of it and he was cleared."
O'Loan believes her gender helps her investigations: "Women can be sharper
intuitively, and we become very personally committed and determined to push
things forward. If men hit difficulties, they sometimes just revert to
process." On TV, she won't wear jewellery, except for unobtrusive ear-rings
"and perhaps a small brooch", because it might distract from her message.
For someone hugely compassionate, she appears cold in public: "When I'm
holding a press conference, it's usually bad news so I'm not all warm and
cheery. I hear terrible tales. I've cried with the bereaved in this office.
But I put away my tears to do the job properly. I'm no use to anybody if my
emotions take over."
O'Loan was born in Hertfordshire, the eldest of eight. Her father, a
solicitor's clerk from Dublin, died when she was 13. She won a scholarship
to a convent boarding school: "When you come from a large, poor family, life
is difficult. School was orderly and managed."
She met Declan when they were students in London: "I was living in King's
College Catholic chaplaincy. He came to a dance. I thought he was nice
looking. I won't say more than that. I've indulged you enough!"
She got a job with a big City law firm, "great money but they own your
soul". So they moved to Ballymena: Declan had grown up down the road. In
1976, she was in the University of Ulster, where she taught, when a bomb
went off. "Lord Chief Justice McDermott was giving a lecture. I'd been due
to sit beside him but was called away and sat elsewhere.
"The ceiling collapsed on our heads. The chair I was to sit on wasn't there
afterwards. I was three months' pregnant and very shaken. I miscarried
within hours."
O'Loan loves her five sons dearly but "would have liked a daughter, you have
different conversations with a girl". She reads "the Bible, books on
spirituality, and lots of trashy novels". She listens to "Mozart,
Beethoven, and I love James Galway playing that flute".
Less peaceful was her visit to a firing-range. "I was deciding on the use of
plastic bullets, so I put on a helmet and ear muffs, and tried the weapon
myself – with disastrous results," she laughs.
Her most controversial report was on the Omagh bomb investigation. She found
police had ignored key warnings. She accused Sir Ronnie Flanagan of
"defective leadership". He branded her report "error-ridden". Former UUP MP
Ken Maginnis denounced her as "a suicide bomber". "I was marching up and
down the office in rage," she says.
She didn't show it. Her reaction was dignified, simply saying she stood by
her report. As Flanagan delivered his response, she was in hospital
receiving test results for a neck lump. They disclosed a "serious"
condition. "I told the doctors I had to reply to the Chief Constable at a 5
pm press conference.
"They were horrified, but I went ahead. I thought I did well but the Omagh
families noticed I didn't look myself. They thought Ronnie Flanagan's
criticism had shaken me." O'Loan's health has recovered.
Her term of office ends in 2007. There are fears the British government will
appoint someone more malleable. "The job will need new blood but it will
break my heart to go," she admits. She will seek a "fresh challenge", but
on this side of the world. Born in Britain, living in the North, is she
Irish or British? "Oh I'm just me, just Nuala, a free spirit," she says.
