Commenting, Trevor Clarke said,
"After weeks of
silence, Michelle O'Neill has denied that Sinn Fein threatened to
withdraw support for policing over the PSNI operation on the Ormeau Road
in February 2021. This
account, however, is at odds with the account of senior members of the
PSNI. The complete picture and the facts must be established.
The ruling by Mr
Justice Scoffield refers to minutes of a PSNI meeting in which the
Deputy Chief Constable Mark Hamilton advised:
'there was pressure
emerging from the Deputy First Minister in regard to the status of the
officers involved and that there were suggestions of grave consequences
for republican support for policing.'
Did Michelle O’Neill press for disciplinary action against the two officers involved?
Ultimately, Sinn
Fein need to explain why high-ranking members of the Police Service
believed Michelle O’Neill’s representations amounted to an ultimatum in
respect of ongoing support for policing.
We will not be stopping until the full detail of this sorry episode is laid out clearly for the public to see who said what and when."