Demolition work has begun at east Belfast's controversial Castlereagh holding centre.
For over 30 years, the centre was one of the main RUC centres for the interrogation of paramilitary suspects in the North.
The centre's closure was one of the 175 recommendations made in the Patten report on the future of policing in the North. It was closed for good at the end of November in 1999.
PSNI Superintendent Gordon Reid said policing had changed dramatically since the centre was established. He said the site had been vacant for many years, and demolition would allow the police to utilise the land properly.
Supt Reid said the fact it had been unused for so long reflected recent changes in policing in the North.
It was opened in 1972 in response to Bloody Friday when the IRA detonated 26 bombs in Belfast, killing 11 people. In the past the United Nations committee on torture expressed concern at the interrogation techniques used by officers in the centre.
In 1999, Monsignor Denis Faul, a former prison chaplain to the Maze Prison, and an outspoken critic of the Castlereagh centre, welcomed the closure of what he described as a "dreadful place". "It is the end of a very bad chapter," he said.
The site will be turned into a car park area to service the Castlereagh police complex attached to the site.
