Judith Gillespie: Every Contact Leaves a Trace

Report by Luke Sheehan

How did a daughter of a religious Presbyterian home, whose young adulthood coincided with the most incandescent years of the Troubles, come to be the first female chief officer in the PSNI, the second most senior officer in the force, as well as an Irish language learner and wearer of the Fáinne Airgid?

On the 12th November last, Judith Gillespie came to the Royal Irish Academy to contribute her insights on Britishness and Irishness, based on years of police work and community building, north and south, in conversation with Richard English, Dean of the Senator George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen’s University Belfast.

Judith Gillespie grew up in divided North Belfast, near the Duncairn Presbyterian Church where her father was a minister, and where the family lived in the Manse or church house. She describes him as a ‘peacemaker.’ Community- and tradition-minded, he once interrupted a fracas that had interrupted his Sunday sermon, asking the youth to go home, or move on: ‘and remarkably they did.’ There were even Irish dancing lessons in his church hall—’he was ahead of his time,’ she says proudly.

Yet this conscientious and serious man would also, (like her mother) ‘quietly get up and switch the radio’ if an Irish language programme ever came on.

Gillespie’s upbringing was church halls and ball games, days of piano, Sunday sermons, rest—and unrest. They lived on the borderline. Her early memories include receiving abuse on her way home from school, being escorted to and fro. Her mother had been a nurse, but gave up that career when the children arrived. ‘I had two brothers and two sisters, and between the five of us, we managed to break every window in the church hall.’ One day, when she was seven, a teacher entered the classroom and wrote a name on the board: Victor Arbuckle. This was the first RUC man to be murdered in the Troubles, ‘by loyalists, as it happened.’ Richard English asked Judith how her family reacted when, a decade later, she declared an intention to join the constabulary. Were they happy? What was in store for her, as a woman?

Influenced by her father, she started towards policing with the sense that keeping the peace ‘needs support from responsible citizens,’ and that the force must nourish that support.

The prospect for women in the RUC? Such that her mum and dad clearly felt that it
‘wasn’t the job for their daughter,’ and thought it was an ‘answered prayer’ when she was turned down twice. Women were made not to feel welcome. ‘Back in those days [1981] women were not trained to use a baton, not issued a gun. Women were issued with a handbag.’ When she finally did enter the training center in Enniskillen, there were 86 men and four women. Richard English interjected that, as well as these difficulties, there must have been a great deal of human suffering to take in, as a young person?

‘One of the first places I was stationed was Andersonstown in West Belfast, a staunchly republican area… if the police were called to an address, three Land Rovers would pull up, with myself, half a dozen male officers and four soldiers. I’ve often reflected on what that must have been like for women who were victims of domestic abuse. It would have been so very difficult for a female victim.’

Another painful image that stays with her was, decades later, watching her ‘17-year old daughter get down on her hands and knees to check under the car for explosives… I was a volunteer and she was a conscript in’ the conflict. In a context where multiple colleagues were murdered, she always felt ‘in a state of hypervigilance, concerned about who might be following you home.’ With time, through years of handling both dreary criminality and urban warfare, she felt the weight of the layers of separation that were built into the environment. Police stations were ‘fortresses and barracks’—and they were not the only ‘physical impediments to building trust. I wanted nevertheless to build trust.’

The Good Friday Agreement and the shift to a new era saw rapid phases of promotion: chief inspector in 1997, superintendent two years later, and chief superintendent in 2002. Having been one of the few women to join the RUC in the 1980s, she would now help form the Police Service of Northern Ireland for a new era. She would become second in command by the end of the decade.  Asked Richard English, ‘How was the process of changing?’

First, observed Gillespie, she remains ‘equally proud of my service in both.’ Processes of integration and change would prove tricky.  One obstacle faced by the new force was the integration of Catholics, the proportion of which seemed stuck at 8-9%. Following the Patten report and recommendations, a direct discrimination in favour of Catholics versus non-Catholics was applied, with a 50/50 goal. Though controversial at the time, this managed to raise the figure to close to 30%—and bring in more women.

In the final parts of the conversation, Richard English and audience members posed questions that dealt with matters serious and lighthearted, including her learning of Irish, and the multiple roles she has had since her retirement from the PSNI a decade ago.  During the time she was learning Irish, she had a tutor who would help her persevere with lessons even after a hard day at work as deputy chief constable. She sat school exams with students and received nearly 100%—a point of sincere pride, underlined by wearing the Silver Fáinne. She suffered malicious rumours and abuse around this time, connected to a perceived ‘greening’ of the PSNI. ‘When they go low, you go high—and sue them. That was the most effective thing.’

A late key chapter in the time discussed during the ARINS exchange was her 5 years as a founding member of the Garda Síochána reforms initiative (the Garda Policing Authority) in 2015. She candidly shared a memory of what she describes as a ‘visceral’ reaction to the Irish tricolour, when she walked into the first Garda Policing Authority meeting—based on associations from the far past. A huge priority for her, for reform and for police efficiency generally, was framed by the mantra, ‘Don’t follow a cock up with a cover up.’ The necessity of transparency must be balanced with a patient attitude, a determination to let things properly ‘take root.’ This was underlined by the first audience question, on Garda morale: had she seen any sign of it declining since 2015? ‘The new oversight architecture was probably painful for the guards… When we asked for data, they might think, “why are they asking?”’ For Gillespie the dangers of police oversight might be glimpsed in the Chris Kaba case in London, where the ‘The officer was subject to a manslaughter trial’ wherein he was exonerated. One must, she said, ‘ask the questions, but not become involved in operational decisions.’

The final questions, posed by the audience, concerned issues of stereotyping, her non-policing-related roles (including the NI Working Group on Mother and Baby Homes, etc.), accusations of bias against Drew Harris, the necessity of involving youth more energetically in cross-border initiatives—and the NI police show, ‘Blue Lights’. What did she make of the latter?

‘I like it. There was one thing that bothered me: in my whole 32 years I never once had an egg thrown at me. In Northern Ireland they throw things that are much worse.’

On Drew Harris, she defended his record as a man of ‘intense integrity with a strong sense of ethics,’ adding that it might be worthwhile to have a seasoned Garda officer make a similar move to Northern Ireland to take up a senior role. On the matter of stereotyping, an attendee asked her about the problem of how police react in the moment, to dress, appearance and other indicators. Here Gillespie answered painstakingly, and with great insight. She quoted the forensic science dictum of Edmund Locard, that any ‘contact leaves a trace.’ In her formulation, the ‘contact’ may be the chance meeting of community and police:

‘The vast majority of people have yet to make up their mind about whether they are going to support the police.  When we say, “any contact leaves a trace,” that is true not just of crime scenes… every contact can be positive or negative, can make people more trusting or less trusting.’

In three decades of police work and ten years of assisting a variety of groups, Judith Gillespie has shown a fidelity to the idea of more trust—and healing—after these points of contact.

This event was part of the series ‘Conversations on Britishness and Irishness’ run by ARINS (Analysing and Researching Ireland North and South) along with George J. Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at Queen’s University Belfast.