Simon Byrne has had a long summer. Barely had the controversy over multiple PSNI data breaches died down – or been kicked into the long grass, thanks to the announcement last week of an independently-led review – when the North’s chief constable found himself in the midst of yet another crisis.
On Tuesday a High Court judge quashed actions taken against two junior PSNI officers following an incident in 2021 in which a survivor of the loyalist gun attack on Sean Graham’s bookmakers on Belfast’s Ormeau Road in 1992 – which killed five people – was arrested and handcuffed during a memorial event over suspicions the numbers attending breached Covid-19 regulations.
This was deeply controversial at the time and suddenly became more so; in his ruling Mr Justice Scofield said the decision to suspend one probationary constable and reposition another was motivated by the real or perceived threat that Sinn Féin would withdraw its support for policing in Northern Ireland – something Sinn Féin has unequivocally denied.
The DUP and Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) reiterated calls for Byrne’s resignation; the Policing Board meeting which followed – held behind closed doors on Thursday – broke up abruptly after an “intensive” six hours.
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In a statement issued shortly afterwards Byrne said that after “carefully reviewing the full judgment, I sought further advice” and “after consideration, the question of an appeal is live”.
If this was also about reaching the safety of the long grass it did not work; instead it set that grass alight.
Byrne is no stranger to calls for his resignation; he has faced down numerous controversies since taking up the post in 2019, believing it is better to stay put and try to solve problems rather than quit, and insisted, as he left Thursday’s meeting, that “I’m not resigning”.
Clearly he did not realise the conflagration that was about to engulf him. If this is the crisis that finally ends Byrne’s tenure as chief constable, this will have been the turning point.
In a strong statement released shortly afterwards, Liam Kelly, the chair of the Police Federation for Northern Ireland (PFNI), outlined anger among rank-and-file police officers at the chief constable’s “volte face” after previously accepting the ruling.
He said that, in effect, the chief constable would be “appealing against his own actions against his own officers … this has infuriated and antagonised the rank and file further, and once again the two officers at the centre of the case are being treated disdainfully”.
This is the nub of it. With morale and confidence within the PSNI already damaged by previous crises, for the ordinary police officer this was yet another example of junior ranks being thrown under the bus in order to protect senior management.
Byrne has lost the dressingroom. The PFNI – backed by the Superintendents’ Association of Northern Ireland – and NIPSA, which represents some civilian police staff, are to hold extraordinary meetings next week, when no confidence votes may take place.
But his isolation goes further. That he and his deputy chief constable, Mark Hamilton, were interviewed separately at the Policing Board speaks of division rather than unity at a senior level within the PSNI; in the political arena the Ulster Unionist Party (UUP) has added its calls for his resignation to those of the TUV and DUP, which on Friday evening said it had submitted a motion of no confidence in Byrne to the Policing Board.
Nor does he have the support of the public, with only 16 per cent saying they had confidence in the chief constable in a LucidTalk poll last month.
Already on the schedule for next week are further pressure points, not least the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee on Tuesday, when Byrne will face questions from MPs on the major data leak – its consequences demonstrated again on Friday by the appearance of a poster with the details of three serving police officers in a bus shelter in Dungiven, Co Derry.
Summer is over; it is difficult to see how an embattled Byrne can survive the autumn to come.
