Orde claims some PSNI officers 'want me to fail'

Chief Constable Hugh Orde has claimed that there are individuals within the PSNI that want him to fail in his job.

The Chief Constable made his statement during an address to politicians in the United States yesterday.

During his address to politicians in New York, the Chief Constable added: "There are people who want the process to fail. There are people who want me to fail. Some of those people are within my organisation.

"Many of my staff have told me on empowerment 'we have been here before'," he said.

"They have been here before. They have been here several times before. The difference is this time we are going to do it. Before it never happened, it remained centrally controlled."

However, the Chief Constable's comments have come under criticism from the DUP's Ian Paisley Jnr who described them as "unprofessional, naive and plain silly".

But, the UUP's Fred Cobain claimed that such thinking from Mr Orde's colleagues would only be detrimental to the current force in its efforts to implement to Patten recommendations.

"Undermining the chief constable is undermining the police service. If we are going to have a new start to policing everyone needs to be swimming in the same direction," he said.

The Chief Constable also hit out at his detractors claiming that since the inception of the PSNI and his appointment as Chief Constable, 236 people were arrested on terrorist-related charges last year.

He continued: "In the last year, there were 12 terrorist-related murders. It was going to be 10, but we had a bad December. That is down from 18 last year, another substantial drop. It compares very favourably with 1972, when there were nearly 400 deaths due to terrorist-related crime. So we need to remember where we have come from."

Mr Orde also revealed PSNI successes in terms of car crime in west Belfast, which he said was down by 32%.

"We have succeeded there by working with communities that previously would not have even talked to us," he added:

"Another example, I think, is our Get Home Safe Campaign, which aims to tackle street violence in the centre of Belfast. We have reduced that by joint working by 15%. So again, we are making a difference by working with other people. That campaign was funded by local government and supported by a major advertising campaign."

Mr Orde, who took over from Sir Ronnie Flanagan last September as PSNI Chief Constable, was in America to attend a policing conference in Washington.

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