‘Complete review’ of North policing needed, says head of Catholic Police Guild

The head of the body which represents Catholic Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) officers has called for a “complete and independent review of policing in Northern Ireland”.

Writing in today’s Irish Times, the chairman of the Catholic Police Guild, Supt Gerry Murray, said it was “vital” if the PSNI was to move forward following a “chaotic month for policing in the region”.

Last week, the chief constable, Simon Byrne, resigned in the wake of a series of crises for the PSNI, including an “unprecedented” data leak, in which personal and employment information of thousands of police officers and civilian staff were published online and accessed by dissident republicans, and his handling of a controversial court judgment.

The Police Federation for Northern Ireland, which represents rank-and-file police officers, subsequently passed a vote of no confidence in the deputy chief constable, Mark Hamilton, and two other senior officials.

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A number of investigations and reviews are under way, including an independent examination of how scrutiny body the Northern Ireland policing board “discharges its legislative duties”.

Outlining the consequences of the data leak before a Westminster committee on Wednesday, Supt Murray said members of the guild were “frightened” and “I have had instances of young Catholic officers asking me if they should carry their personal protection weapons when they go to Mass”.

In Monday’s article, Supt Murray said the issues facing the PSNI and the “entire policing structure in Northern Ireland, however, go deeper and wider than recent controversies”.

He said he was in “contact daily with individual Catholic officers who feel isolated or excluded by colleagues” and that “honesty is required… about how we have arrived at the point to which we find ourselves today: an absent leadership, a demoralised service, an unwillingness to face up to the issues raised by minority groups – including Catholics – and a police service which day-to-day or week-to-week is plagued by negative headlines”.

“What we need is a police service which recruits from and represents the entire community of Northern Ireland.

“Twenty-five years after the Independent Commission on Policing reported, it is time once again for a complete and independent review of policing in Northern Ireland,” he said.

[ Give Me a Crash Course in ... the crisis in the PSNI ]

[ Northern Ireland officers pass vote of no confidence in PSNI deputy chief constable ]

Supt Murray said current proposals from the policing board “amount to an insufficient and inherently flawed review process” and “will not deliver the change that is needed”.

“A new independent police review – led by policing and criminal justice experts from outside Northern Ireland – can undertake a complete review of all policing structures: the PSNI itself, the policing board and district policing partnerships.

“It can produce a report with recommendations within a one-year period. This is vital if we are to move policing forward in Northern Ireland.”

On Sunday the North’s former minister for justice, the independent Assembly member Claire Sugden, told the BBC’s Sunday Politics programme there needed to be a “wider” review on the scale of the Independent Commission on Policing for Northern Ireland, led by Lord Patten, which resulted in the transformation of the RUC into the PSNI.

“We need a review that looks at operations, that looks at the organisation more widely; it looks at the culture, and it looks at it again within the context of other public services in Northern Ireland,” she said.