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Burned. Sam McBride
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With the politician’s spiritual adviser having prepared the path, the MLA then turned to more pressing temporal matters. Bell, who was prone to exaggerated earnestness, even if answering Assembly questions on mundane matters, did not undersell the significance of his mission. He told McCormick that he was determined to make public the truth of what had happened even if it cost him his career. He assured McCormick that he would strongly protect the interests of officials and not allow them to be blamed for the failures of others.
McCormick, one of Stormont’s most experienced senior civil servants and someone who was respected across the political spectrum for his integrity, handed over a file of documents to Bell and left the room for him to study it.
Prior to contacting McCormick, Bell had spoken to Robinson who advised him that as a former minister he could go and ask for documentation from the department. Bell’s closeness to Robinson and the fact that there was some contact between the two men about the issue in this period led to speculation within the DUP as to whether Bell was acting as part of some wider plan.
During a whispered conversation while McCormick was out of the room, Cleland asked Bell: ‘Why did you decide to go to the fount of all knowledge or of all wisdom?’ A source familiar with Bell’s thinking in this period said that this was a coded reference used by the two men to refer to Nolan. But before Bell could answer, McCormick reappeared in the room.
On his return, Bell asked McCormick what he would say if he was asked why there had been a delay in reining in the scheme. Speaking bluntly, McCormick replied: ‘Well to be totally honest with you, I’d be saying I was aware that there were discussions within the party and the ministers and the special advisors had been asked by others within the party to keep it open – that’s the truth.’
After more than an hour at Netherleigh, and with the alarm for closing time ringing, Bell and Cleland bade their farewells and disappeared off into the night.
Throughout the encounter, Bell had made a series of references to preparing himself for some future occasion on which he might have to answer for what had happened on his watch. For three months, the Assembly’s Public Accounts Committee had been holding hearings to investigate the scandal, and McCormick assumed that was what Bell had in mind. He never considered that he might have a more immediate and more public plan. But the day after his meeting with the former minister, the DUP spad in McCormick’s department, John Robinson, informed him that his meeting with Bell and Cleland had been recorded.
It is still not clear how Robinson had knowledge of the recording, but within the DUP it was known that Bell had a habit of covertly recording conversations. McCormick was profoundly disturbed. For a former minister to secretly record his most senior civil servant was not just outside of his experience; it was unprecedented. Over coming days, it became clear that Bell had given the recording to the BBC and was threatening to give permission for it to be broadcast.
It was a period of intense personal turmoil for McCormick. After a long career in the civil service, just three weeks earlier he had been interviewed by the First and deputy First Ministers in what was the final stage of the competition to be Head of the Civil Service. At that point he did not know whether he had got the £180,000-a-year job, but he knew that the rules had recently been changed to allow the DUP and Sinn Féin ministers to conduct the final interviews for the appointment – a level of political control over the politically neutral post which does not exist anywhere else in the UK. In the days to come, DUP minister Simon Hamilton said in a message to senior DUP spad Richard Bullick: ‘His concerned reaction suggests he has said things he knows he shouldn’t have. This could be very bad for him. And us.’
Bell had told the public in his Nolan interview that McCormick was ‘a man of the utmost integrity and one of the finest servants of the civil service that the public could ask for’. Yet he had secretly recorded him on at least two occasions and was holding over this ‘man of the utmost integrity’ the threat of releasing those conversations if he did not act in a certain way. Almost two years later at the public inquiry, Bell would be pressed repeatedly to explain why he had felt it necessary to act with subterfuge. He told the inquiry that ‘all I wanted to do was have a valid record of what my concerns were’. But when David Scoffield QC asked him why he had not chosen to use ‘more transparent ways’ of securing that objective, Bell did not answer the question but gave a rambling reply, which included everything from the scale of the RHI overspend to the fact that he had been a premature baby and a comment on his political career.
Eventually, inquiry chairman Sir Patrick Coghlin interjected:
You have told us already that you regarded him as a man of integrity. All I’m trying to find out … is why, given that assumption on your part, your acceptance of his integrity, you found it necessary to carry out a concealed recording. Now one possible inference is that you did not consider him to be a man of integrity.
Bell paused for several seconds before saying: ‘My answer to that is that I do believe him to be a man of integrity. I also believe I needed a contemporaneous, accurate account and … the permanent secretary had to act to [the wishes of] his current minister, who may or may not want information released.’
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The interview with Bell had been recorded on the afternoon of Wednesday, 14 December and clips from it were trailed on Nolan’s radio show the following morning. It was clear that Bell had spoken out in a way which was sufficiently significant for the BBC to immediately bring it to air, inserting it into the schedule so late that it did not even feature in that morning’s newspaper TV listings. The DUP top brass consulted David Gordon, who as Executive Press Secretary was just three months into his job as Stormont’s top spin doctor.
As a former editor of The Nolan Show and one of Northern Ireland’s sharpest journalistic minds, he could see the scale of the unfolding crisis. Knowing Nolan inside out, Gordon had a cunning plan for how to manage the growing mess. That afternoon he phoned Buckler – who was covering the story for the News At Ten – and asked him if he was to interview Foster could he guarantee that the interview would also be played as part of the special programme in which Bell was speaking out. It was a shrewd move, which attempted to not only save Foster from Nolan’s aggressive interview style but also potentially split the BBC team by offering the major opportunity to one of Nolan’s closest friends. But when Buckler relayed the call to Nolan and Carragher it was Carragher who – despite her years of clashes with Nolan – ruled out the idea, saying firmly that Stormont would not be dictating who could conduct a BBC interview.
Having attempted to circumvent Nolan, the DUP now accepted that it was better for Foster to face his questions rather than allow Bell’s allegations to go out unchallenged. The news was relayed to the BBC at about 5.30pm, with the interview scheduled for 8pm – a rapid turnaround for such a major broadcast – and a satellite truck was despatched to the Stormont Estate.
During the negotiations about whether to do the interview, Foster had spent that day in Stormont Castle being briefed by Johnston and Bullick. McCormick was also present in the baronial castle which served as the Office of the First Minister and deputy First Minister. McCormick’s DUP minister had asked him to personally attest to the accuracy of a fact sheet which was being drawn up for the BBC.
Although Nolan was Stormont’s most feared journalistic inquisitor, the BBC personality had a reputation for being somewhat chaotic, and he was late arriving at Stormont for the interview with Foster. As the DUP and civil servants waited for the BBC crew to arrive, someone produced fish suppers which they ate while making final preparations for what would be a career-defining moment for Foster.
It was after 8pm – just over two and a half hours before the Bell interview was to be aired – when the presenter finally arrived at the castle’s security barrier. With him was a senior BBC editor, Kevin Kelly, and producer, David Thompson, as well as the technical team. At the front door of the castle, they were met by Gordon.
As they walked down a corridor in the castle, one of