24/01/2007

Police Ombudsman to brief board on report

The Policing Board are to be briefed by Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan this afternoon.

The meeting is expected to be tense and the PSNI Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde is expected to attend the meeting.

Mrs O'Loan's report has come under fire from the retired police officer's association. In a statement highly critical of the report they described the report as "seriously flawed".

An Ulster Unionist Party delegation led by Party Leader Sir Reg Empey are pressing for a meeting with PSNI Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde at PSNI Headquarters to discuss the issues ahead of the Police Ombudsman's briefing.

The UUP are also concerned about the abolition of the Assets Recovery Agency, and will be pressing for further information on this decision.

On last night's BBC 'Spotlight' programme, former head of Special Branch and RUC Chief Constable Sir Ronnie Flanagan again denied that he was aware of the specific details relating to one informant of one paramilitary grouping in Belfast.

He called for a "sense of balance" and said that the notion that this was common practice right throughout Special Branch should be "dispelled."

Sir Ronnie, who was the head of Special Branch prior to being promoted to Chief Constable, left the PSNI to join Her Majesty's Inspectorate of Constabulary. He has rejected calls for his resignation.

The Police Ombudsman's report concluded that police officers had colluded with loyalist gangs in the murders of over a dozen people during the 1990s.

(SP/KMcA)

Related Northern Ireland News Stories
Click here for the latest headlines.

23 June 2016
Police Officers Disciplined For Failing To Tell Doctor About Woman's Head Injuries
Two police officers have been disciplined after they failed to let their colleagues and a police doctor know that a woman had sustained a head injury, a Police Ombudsman investigation has concluded. The woman died from bleeding to the brain on 24 February 2014, the day after she suffered the injury.
24 January 2007
Special Branch officers named in Commons
SDLP leader Mark Durkan has waded into the RUC collusion scandal by using parliamentary privilege to name three senior RUC officers who, he claims, failed to co-operate with the Police Ombudsman's inquiry.
06 June 2007
Orde says 'No' to unarmed police force
At the first Policing Board meeting involving Sinn Fein, the PSNI Chief Constable was challenged today by Sinn Fein's Alex Maskey to say when an unarmed police force would patrol in Northern Ireland.
10 February 2005
Sir Ronnie's appointment welcomed by Policing Board chief
The Chairman of the Northern Ireland Policing Board has welcomed the news that former PSNI Chief Constable, Sir Ronnie Flanagan, has been appointed as Her Majesty's Chief Inspector of Constabulary. The appointment announced on Wednesday will see Sir Ronnie succeed Sir Keith Povey, who has been Chief Inspector of Constabulary since September 2001.
24 January 2002
PSNI Chief Constable hits back at Omagh critics
The Chief Constable Sir Ronnie Flanagan has presented his report to the families and the bereaved of the 1998 Real IRA Omagh bomb victims. Sir Ronnie’s 28-page report was compiled in response to criticism levelled at him and police handling of the Omagh investigation by the Police Ombudsman, Nuala O’Loan early in December 2001.