29 July 1999 Edition

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RUC using joyriders

Padraig MacDabhaid

Twinbrook Sinn Féin councillor Paul Butler has challenged the RUC to explain why Stephen Light - one of the car thieves involved in the deaths of Brian Donnelly (19), Justin (24) and Charmaine Watson (26) near Ballybogey outside Ballymoney, Co Antrim, last Friday - was arrested and then released a week earlier.

Light, a passenger in the stolen car involved in the Ballymoney crash, was also charged with offences dating back to the beginning of July. ``If arrested for anything else, it would be normal to be charged and brought before a court. In this case, the people were arrested, released, and then charged only after the tragic events of last Friday,'' said Butler.

``Many of these car thieves are low-level RUC informers and seem to be almost immune from prosecution. The fact that these individuals were well known car thieves and when arrested were almost immediately released raises serious questions about the role of the RUC as a police force,'' he said.

Sinn Féin President Gerry Adams said the deaths ``only serves to highlight the social and political issues which surround this activity''. The problem of joyriding, he said, has ``been compounded by the lack of an effective policing service, and the current approach to car theft by the RUC''.

``It is well known that the RUC are indifferent to the fact that nationalist estates are being nightly turned into virtual race tracks. Any solution to this problem will require the establishment of a policing service which the community can rely upon to help tackle the escalating problem of car theft.''

``Car theft is and has been for some years a scourge on the community in west Belfast and beyond. Within the past year, five people have been killed in this area and countless other lives ruined. It is a problem which requires a multi agency approach, it can no longer be ignored by statutory bodies.''

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