5 February 2004 Edition
Antrim Road PSNI heads civilian complaint list
Newly-released figures from the Police Ombudsman's office show that the PSNI barracks located on the Antrim Road in North Belfast has received more complaints and allegations of mistreatment than any other in the Six Counties.
Statistics show that out of 552 allegations of misconduct made between October 2000 and November 2003, a shocking 444 were upheld.
The figures also reveal that the six PSNI stations located throughout North Belfast received the largest total number of complaints out of 28 PSNI district command units across the Six Counties.
The figures, unveiled last week, show that North Belfast DCU received a total of 2,404 complaints, compared to 1,077 in West Belfast, 1,589 in South Belfast and 1,007 in East Belfast.
In the Antrim Road barracks alone, there have been 996 complaints since 2000, with a further 619 against officers at the Oldpark station.
"This comes as no surprise," says Sinn Féin's spokesperson on policing and justice, Gerry Kelly. "North Belfast has been on the receiving end of bad policing, not just for the last three years, but for well over 30 years.
"On countless occasions we have seen the PSNI acting in a political and partisan nature against nationalists. Their paramilitary policing places primacy on what they term counter-insurgency and effectively ignores any sort of normal policing methods and has led to a culture wherein the PSNI serves itself, not the community."
Second on the list of shame is the Strand Road PSNI station in Derry. 442 allegations of misconduct were made against Strand Road officers during the same period, with 351 of the charges upheld. Other high offenders include the Grosvenor Road station in West Belfast, Musgrave Street in the South of the city and Strandtown station in the East. Outside of Belfast and Derry, the most complained about forces statistically are in Ballymena, Bangor and Antrim town.
Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan says that she hopes the new initiative, which makes public information and details previously only available to senior PSNI officers, will help to dispel some of the secrecy that surrounds the work her office carries out.
"It would be fair to say that in the past, the information routinely made available against the PSNI was very limited," says O'Loan. "I want to try to ensure that people's knowledge of my office and the issues around our work are based on fact, not misunderstanding or rumour."
• Sinn Féin's Paul Butler has met Nuala O'Loan in his attempt to have the PSNI brought to book over two incidents that occurred last November as votes were being counted in the recent Assembly Elections.
On Thursday 27 November during the count at Dromore Leisure Centre, Butler and a party colleague were accosted by a loyalist mob and physically and verbally abused. On Friday, as the count was ending, the Sinn Féin team were leaving the count centre in a convoy of cars when the PSNI stopped one of the cars, saying it was stolen, and held the driver for 20 minutes.
Butler said his meeting with the Ombudsman was "very interesting".
"The Ombudsman now knows the identities of the PSNI members involved and they will be questioned about their actions," he said.
Butler is calling on Chief Electoral Officer Denis Stanley to find a more neutral and safe location for the Lagan Valley and South Down counts in any future election.