`Amateur' Police Authority
01 January 1991
`Amateur' Police Authority
artdoc August=1994
The Chief Constable for Northern Ireland, Sir Hugh Annesley, has
described the Police Authority for Northern Ireland as `a bunch
of well-meaning, good-intentioned amateurs' (Belfast Telegraph
1.4.94). His comments come in the wake of a Northern Ireland
Office consultative document on Policing in the Community, which
proposes to shift responsibility for police finances and civilian
staff from the Police Authority to the Chief Constable. The
Authority is wholly appointed by the Secretary of State and its
membership remains largely secret on grounds of personal
security. Neither the SDLP nor the trade unions take their places
on the Authority, the Irish Congress of Trade Unions having
withdrawn in 1980. It is clear that the Chief Constable now
intends to by-pass even this minimal level of accountability by
reporting directly to the Secretary of State.
In another attack on accountability, two RUC constables are
taking legal action against the Independent Commission for Police
Complaints. The ICPC directed that the two officers should face
disciplinary charges after the Director of Public Prosecutions
failed to recommend their prosecution for allegedly batoning
repeatedly a loyalist from the Sandy Row area of Belfast. The
constables are seeking a judicial review of the ICPC's decision
on the grounds that the DPP has already judged that no offence
took place.
Irish News 6.5.94.
Statewatch, Vol 4 no 4, July-August 1994