“Do Not Become Recruiting -Sergeant for PSNI”

Posted By: March 29, 2013

Reiss is Advised

Dr. Mitchel Reiss
Special Envoy for Northern Ireland
Saturday, February 4, 2006

Dear Mitchel,
Because of your strong, unreserved support of the PSNI, I thought you would be interested in the enclosed article from Daily Ireland, “PSNI won’t become representative of wider society in North until 2027″( Friday, February 3, 2006).

On your recent visit to Northern Ireland , you generated the following headline “PSNI THE BEST IN EUROPE SAYS REISS ( January 27, 22006. news@iais.org).

Many of us wish your support for the PSNI were a little bit more critical and cautious. It would be a pity if your good work for Ireland became overshadowed by your exuberant and uncritical support for a police service about which there are still many profoundly disturbing questions.Remember how the good work( however belated) of JFK and LBJ for Civil Rights came to be overshadowed in the African-American community by the nefarious work of the wretched J. Edgar Hoover and his racist FBI?
If you have not already read it, I would strongly recommend you read ” Racial Matters: the FBI’s secret file on Black America, 1960-1972″ by Kenneth O’Reilly( The Free Press. New York. 1989). Permit me to give you a quote from this very important study : ” During the March on Washington, SNCC Chairman John Lewis wanted to know which side the federal government was on.In 1979, fifteen years after Freedom Summer, a group of movement veterans gathered in Jackson, Mississippi, to reconsider those times and to try to answer Lewis’s question. When one of them railed against ” the subversion” of the movement by ” the self-styled ‘pragmatism’ of those splendid scoundrels residing in the Camelot on the Potomac,” he received ” a cheering, standing ovation”. One of the persons in the audience, New York Times columnist Anthony Lewis, said he came expecting a celebration of amazing change but instead found bitterness directed not at ” the old segregationists of Mississippi but Northern liberals and, especially, the Kennedy and Johnson Administrations”.( page 356).
No Catholic from Northern Ireland can read that quote without profound resonance.
Like you, I too want to see an acceptable police service( “fair and impartial, free from partisan political control; accountable, both under the law for its actions and to the community it serves …”, as the Good Friday Agreement envisioned) but the enclosed article does little to inspire confidence.Nor does the conduct of the PSNI in the recent past.For example, former policeman, the very brave Jonty Brown, has publicly admitted that he is in fear of his life, not from the IRA, but form elements in the Special Branch because he has exposed their collusion.( See the enclosed article,”‘Former colleagues will try to kill me'” By Connla Young Daily Ireland. January 2, 2006″). Yet you have remained silent on matters like this, while being quite vocal about other accusations regarding Republicans.
I feel it is very important that you avoid any appearance of a double-standard. So I urge you to speak out on these matters so that your good work for Ireland will not be overshadowed by headlines like ” PSNI the best in Europe”( and, yes, I know you don’t write the headlines). It would be a profound tragedy if the honest -broker title of the Special Envoy for Northern Ireland came to be replaced by that of ” Recruiting-Sergeant for the PSNI”.

Thank you
Sean
Father Sean Mc Manus
President
Irish National Caucus
P.O. Box 15128
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C. 20003-0849
202-544-0568

“PSNI won’t become representative of wider society in North until 2027 ”
by Jarlath Kearney
Daily Ireland.Friday, February 3, 2006

PSNI statistics reveal that the force will not become representative of wider society in the North until at least 2027.
The projections are based on the current recruitment trends for the 9,409-strong force at January 1, 2006.

The present percentage of Catholics in the PSNI stands at just 16.39 per cent (1543 members).
It can also be revealed that only one officer from the Garda Síochána has taken part in a mutual personnel exchange – without police powers – with the PSNI since new protocols were exchanged between the Irish and British governments at Hillsborough a year ago.
The revelations emerged as PSNI Chief Constable Hugh Orde launched his force’s annual report in Belfast yesterday.
Figures obtained by Daily Ireland demonstrate that the PSNI is failing to implement the target of recruitment laid down by the Patten Commission report which emerged from the Good Friday Agreement.
Eight years after the agreement and six years after the introduction of the Police Act 2000, key elements of the Patten Commission’s recommendations on policing remain unfulfilled.
For instance, the Patten Commission recommended that the full-time Reserve should be disbanded, a recommendation which the PSNI has failed to fulfil.
The Patten Commission also recommended that the part-time Reserve could be significantly expanded to increase the rate of Catholic composition. Again, the PSNI has failed to progress this recommendation.
The PSNI Reserve (encompassing both full-time and part-time) accounts for 20 per cent of the force (1,890 members).
Since the reserve has historically been even worse in terms of its composition than the overall force (currently 5.9 per cent Catholic members), major changes to this element of the PSNI could impact rapidly on overall Catholic participation. However, both the PSNI and NIO have resisted implementing the Patten Commission recommendations in this regard.
The PSNI have been implementing the 50:50 recruitment programme at entry level which the Patten Commission recommended.
However, based on current recruitment trends, the PSNI is failing to meet the target for the number of Catholic police officers which the Patten Commission recommended by 2005 – namely 18.7 per cent.
By 2006, the commission said the number of Catholic police officers should be 20.6 per cent.
As the latest statistics demonstrate on January 1, 2006, the number of Catholic police officers in the PSNI is just 16.39 per cent.
Given that the number of PSNI members since 50:50 recruitment was introduced has increased at a rate of just 1.3 per cent annually, it would take over 20 years – until 2027 – for the force to achieve parity with current community representation across the North.
The Policing Board yesterday announced that it had, in principle, agreed to explore the possibility of recruiting civilians to patrol local areas with limited powers.
However, this suggestion – which has been put forward by the PSNI – does not correspond with the Patten Commission’s recommendation to significantly enlarge the part-time reserve in mainly nationalist areas.
Welcoming moves to introduce the new initiative of police community support officers, Policing Board chairperson, Des Rea, failed to address the PSNI’s failure to implement the Patten Commission’s recommendations.
“At today’s meetings, Board Members’ discussions also reflected the desire to meet and implement the requirements of the Patten Report in a way, which meets the needs of policing today, while taking account of developments in England & Wales: ensuring that the operational needs of the service are met; and guarding against any potential for PCSOs to become a route into policing for paramilitaries,” Mr Rea said.
******

‘Former colleagues will try to kill me’
By Connla Young
Daily Ireland.
January 2, 2006
A retired member of the RUC yesterday said he believes his former colleagues will try to kill him.
Former RUC man Johnston “Jonty” Brown made the claim during a BBC Radio 4 interview.
During the interview, it emerged that the former CID detective sergeant had recently been warned that the Ulster Volunteer Force in north Belfast had his home address and vehicle details and was planning to attack him.
After confirming that he was in fear of his life, Mr Brown told interviewer Fergal Keane that he believed some of his former police colleagues would help try to kill him.

“I fear that the people that are nominated as those who are coming after me have been sent in my direction by those sinister elements to which I refer within the Special Branch.”
Mr Keane then asked the former Special Branch man: “So you believe your police colleagues in Special Branch are still trying to kill you?” Mr Brown replied: “Yes, I do.”
A spokesperson for the Police Ombudsman’s office last night said the team would examine Mr Brown’s remarks closely.
“We will get a tape of the programme and look at what Mr Brown has said.
“We need to examine what Mr Brown has said and hear the context in which he said it,” said the spokesperson.
Johnston Brown served in the RUC and PSNI for almost 30 years.
He was responsible for helping to put former Ulster Defence Association (UDA) boss Johnny Adair behind bars in 1995 on charges of directing terrorism. Adair’s UDA C company faction carried out a pipe-bomb attack on Mr Brown’s Co Antrim home in October 2000.
The former RUC detective sergeant recruited one-time UDA hitman Ken Barrett as an informer in 1991.
To date, Mr Barrett is the only person to have been convicted in connection with the murder of the solicitor Pat Finucane, who was gunned down in his north Belfast home by the UDA in 1989.
It was Mr Brown who revealed that RUC Special Branch had switched undercover recordings of Ken Barrett confessing his part in the Finucane murder before the recordings were handed over to officials from the Stevens inquiry.
Despite having a taped admission made to Mr Brown in 1991, the RUC refused to prosecute Ken Barrett.
Instead, Special Branch recruited him as an informer.
Mr Brown recently described Ken Barrett as “the most sinister man I ever met”.
The PSNI last night rejected Mr Brown’s remarks that his life was under threat from former colleagues.
“We reject absolutely any allegation that a member of the PSNI would seek to harm Mr Brown. Where we receive information to suggest that someone’s personal security is at risk, we take steps to inform that person.
“We never ignore anything that would put someone’s life in danger. Should anyone have a complaint, they should make contact with the office of the Police Ombudsman,” said the PSNI.

Father Sean Mc Manus
President
Irish National Caucus
P.O. Box 15128
Capitol Hill
Washington, D.C. 20003-0849
202-544-0568