Policing board member says PSNI must do more

The Deputy Chairman of the Northern Ireland Policing board Mr Dennis Bradley has said the police were not doing enough to contain loyalist sectarian violence.

It is not acceptable and there has not been enough done by the police to actually protect, take on and deal in whatever appropriate manner with people like the UDA Deputy Chairman of the Northern Ireland Policing board Mr Dennis Bradley

Mr Bradley told the BBC "it is not acceptable and there has not been enough done by the police to actually protect, take on and deal in whatever appropriate manner with people like the UDA."

The comments come days after the Ulster Freedom Fighters' sectarian murder of Catholic teenager Gerard Lawlor.

Speaking on the BBC, Mr Bradley also criticised last night’s bomb attack by the Continuity IRA in Co Fermanagh on the property of Lord Brookeborough, an elected unionist hereditary peer who also sits on the Policing Board.

Mr Bradley’s comments come as the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) assembly is due to meet to discuss the implications of yesterday’s pronouncements by the British government on redefining the parameters for assessing ceasefires.

The UUP had sought the expulsion of Sinn Féin from the power-sharing assembly but Mr Tony Blair’s government made no such move.

Gerard Lawlor’s funeral takes place today.