Policing Board to hold emergency meeting over PSNI Chief Constable
The Policing Board is to hold an emergency meeting on Monday afternoon.
It comes as the PSNI Chief Constable has found himself at the centre of controversary over the handling of police actions at a Troubles memorial.
There have been calls for his resignation, with the DUP submitting a motion of no confidence to the Policing Board.
The Chief Constable Simon Byrne is scheduled to appear in front of the Northern Ireland Affairs Committee on Tuesday on the huge data breach scandal.
That comes a day ahead of both the Police Federation and Nipsa, which represents civil staff, holding separate meetings on if they should also hold a confidence vote on the chief constable over the handling of the Sean Graham bookmakers atrocity memorial.
In a short statement on Monday morning, the Policing Board confirmed the cancellation of the public meeting on Thursday, saying: "Meetings convened this week will be dedicated to dealing with the situation at hand. "
Members have been called to a meeting on Monday at 2.30pm.
The private session on Thursday remains scheduled to go ahead. There was also speculation there could be a meeting on Thursday.
The latest controversy to hit the PSNI erupted earlier this week when High Court judge Mr Justice Scoffield ruled that two junior officers were unlawfully disciplined for an arrest made at a Troubles commemoration event in 2021.
The judge said they had been disciplined to allay a threat that Sinn Féin could withdraw its support for policing. Sinn Féin has insisted there was no such threat.
Mr Byrne initially said he accepted the High Court judgment, but on Thursday indicated that an appeal was being considered and said it was inappropriate to make any further comment.
The incident which the High Court ruled on occurred on the Ormeau Road in Belfast in February 2021 during a service marking the anniversary of the February 1992 Sean Graham bookmakers attack, in which five people were murdered. The two officers faced action in 2021 after the arrest of Mark Sykes, a survivor of a loyalist gun attack on the bookmakers in south Belfast. The incident unfolded when police challenged people attending a memorial event amid suspicions that the size of the public gathering breached coronavirus regulations. Mr Sykes was handcuffed and arrested in chaotic exchanges captured on social media. The incident triggered a major controversy at the time and sparked criticism of Mr Byrne. Mr Byrne apologised for the PSNI’s handling of the event at the time, and it was announced that one officer was to be suspended and one repositioned. The court ruling this week has heaped further pressure on Mr Byrne, who was already facing questions about his future after a major data blunder led to personal details of officers entering the public domain and getting into the hands of dissident republicans.
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