A legal claim by police officers over post-traumatic stress caused by the conflict in Northern Ireland was dismissed by the Court of Appeal today.
A total of 5,500 Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) officers took a group action alleging their management had failed to treat the disorder adequately.
The policemen were involved in years of anti-terrorism operations which saw many of their colleagues killed or injured at the hands of gunmen or bombers.
Belfast Court of Appeal judge Lord Justice Paul Girvan was reviewing an earlier decision in the High Court.
His office said: “Lord Justice Girvan ... said that it could not be concluded that the chief constable’s (currently Sir Hugh Orde) failure to provide training and education to officers to identify signs and symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to enable them to trigger a referral to the occupational health unit or to other medical advice was a breach of his duty of care to individual officers.”
The court heard the RUC had established the occupational health unit and taken forward stress awareness training for the whole force, albeit with limited coverage of methods of delivery.
The Court spokeswoman added: “Lord Justice Girvan said it was not possible to conclude on the evidence for any given individual that the outcome of that person’s case would probably have been different if the RUC had pursued a different policy on training and education.
The Court went on to consider appeals by the officers in the five lead or specimen cases, all five were dismissed.
PA