The retiring PSNI Chief Constable makes a parting call for more integration
INTOLERANCE IS “embedded” in Northern Irish society and there is an over-reliance on the police service to fix it, Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde has warned.
Speaking on the eve of his departure from the PSNI for a senior policing position in Britain, he challenged local political and community leaders to engage fully in work for a more integrated society.
In an interview with The Irish Times yesterday in which he reflected on his seven years as head of the PSNI, Sir Hugh pointed to the significant strides made towards effective policing with wide public support. But he warned that the dissident threat, racism and unresolved “legacy” issues from the Troubles would require even greater engagement in policing by communities across Northern Ireland.
“Why are we not facing up to the real realities of the issues that this place needs to deal with and why are we continuing to expect the police to deal with them alone or other agencies?” he asked.
He called for urgent progress on policy aims in the Shared Future framework document, claiming it had been “buried” by elected representatives.
“Our work is relentless in building relationships and delivering community policing; where is the Shared Future strategy is a question you lot should be asking.”
He admitted that Sinn Féin decided to support the PSNI and “came on board” sooner than he had anticipated and added that the SDLP had taken “some big hits” for supporting the new policing dispensation from the beginning.
Sir Hugh denied he was scaling back the police presence in Border areas as the threat from dissident republicans was building. He said the threat from such groups was real but should not be exaggerated. “This is not the Provisional IRA,” he said, adding that dissidents had little if any local or international support and were severely hampered by police and intelligence operations.
Sir Hugh also played down the significance of a dissident checkpoint in Meigh, Co Armagh, at the weekend set up by a small group of heavily armed men. “It’s not difficult for a small group of people, a couple of minutes from the Border, to pop across, stand up and make a lot of noise for a couple of minutes, then run away.”
The fact that the checkpoint was encountered by PSNI officers on routine patrol at the time represented “a step change” on seven years ago. He praised their decision to withdraw to evaluate the situation and not to engage directly with the dissidents despite some severe unionist criticism.
This was “a success in the sense that the police are out doing what the public want them to do . . . protecting them. They [the dissidents] swiftly moved on.”
He said there should not be a public rush to judgment about the significance of the incident. “It is a police investigation,” he said “Let’s see what we can find.”
The incoming chief constable, Matt Baggott, would continue to build on the drive for community policing and this was the best method of countering the dissident republican threat, he said.
“The [dissident] threat is still there but the solution is community policing, if more and more communities work with us, the more and more isolated these people become.”
Sir Hugh also backed the decision for the British intelligence service, MI5, to take the lead role in national security and claimed that many lives had been saved as a result. “It is far more sensible that you have access to all the information you need to deliver a safe environment,” he said.
He insisted that his officers “are responsible and always will be responsible for criminal intelligence. We have more officers embedded in building, let alone in any other relationship, with MI5 or any other police service, and it works and there is no question that people are alive today because of the work of MI5 and the PSNI.”
Sir Hugh said the cost of the Bloody Sunday inquiry and other inquiries into disputed killings during the Troubles was prohibitive. More than £200 million has been spent to date. “Judicial inquiries have proved one thing, currently they deliver nothing, they have financially crippled the place and I’m yet to find anyone that says this is the way forward.”
He praised the police Historical Enquiries Team (HET), which is investigating thousands of unsolved murders committed during the conflict and suggested this was a more productive use of resources. Claiming that information on the deaths of individuals had finally been given to their families through the work of the HET, Sir Hugh said: “This is unique, utterly unique in policing, it is without doubt a world leader . . . because it delivers something.”
He added: “The HSC was our contribution and I stand by it and I will not hand it over to anybody unless it is going to continue to deliver in the way it currently delivers.”
Sir Hugh said he would “love to have seen” the devolution of policing and justice powers to Stormont. “I thought it was deliverable, we have created the conditions for it to be deliverable, it’s a matter of the politicians biting the bullet and being responsible.”