UK launches review after court documents found in NI
The British government ordered an urgent review today of arrangements for storing court documents after the discovery of missing legal papers in the North.
The Court Service in Belfast confirmed that documents – some of them more than 30 years old – turned up near Ballygawley, Co Tyrone.
Police said today they had not ruled out a crime.
In a statement, the Court Service said that in common with other government departments, it engaged an independent contractor for the off-site storage of its archived records.
David Hanson, the minister of state at the UK's Department of Justice in London which is responsible for the Northern Ireland Court Service, has commissioned an urgent review of the arrangements.
He said: “I am concerned to learn that old records, which were held for safe storage on behalf of the court service, were misplaced in this way.”
It is understood police were alerted to the discovery of the documents at the end of last week when outbuildings at Todds Lane Road, outside Ballygawley, were searched.
Nobody has been arrested.
