The North's Chief Constable did not get rid of a senior Special Branch officer under pressure from MI5, an investigation published yesterday has found.
The Police Ombudsman, Mrs Nuala O'Loan, said the British intelligence service "did not influence" Mr Hugh Orde in his decision to remove Mr Bill Lowry from his duties at the PSNI special branch.
Mr Lowry, a senior intelligence officer in Belfast, had been investigating the intelligence break-in at Castlereagh police station in March 2002. He was removed from that post amid concerns that he had divulged sensitive intelligence information to a BBC journalist.
Mrs O'Loan's report states that senior police sources believe intelligence leaks could only have come from police sources and were timed to coincide with political events. Mr Lowry said yesterday he was disappointed but not surprised at the investigation's findings.
The DUP said the report was a whitewash and suggested that the public would not find it credible.
The SDLP and the Ulster Unionists accepted it while the PSNI simply said a copy of the report had been received and the Chief Constable would take time to consider it.
The findings dealt with Mr Lowry's principal complaints about the manner of his removal from his post and found none of them was substantiated. Mr Lowry had alleged that Mr Orde has acted unfairly and politically in removing him from his job purely on the instructions of MI5.
The investigation found Mr Orde first spoke to the security services about Mr Lowry only after the decision to move him had been taken. "All evidence collected supports these facts and no evidence contradicts it," the report states.
Mr Lowry further alleged that, during his removal from his post, the Chief Constable instructed officers to escort him to his office in a manner which amounted to unlawful detention.
Mrs O'Loan reported that the procedure to remove Mr Lowry was ordered by the then acting deputy chief constable. She reported that Mr Orde "issued no such instructions as alleged by the complainant".
Mr Lowry's third allegation centred on claims that Mr Orde had unfairly instigated a disciplinary process when he knew Mr Lowry had already been admonished. "The Police Ombudsman is satisfied that the Chief Constable did not know Mr Lowry has been subject to a disciplinary process . . . Moreover the Police Ombudsman is not satisfied that an 'admonishment' or other disciplinary process actually took place."
The report also states that Mr Lowry's final two complaints related to private correspondence between the Chief Constable and the chairman of the Policing Board, Prof Desmond Rea. It states that Mr Lowry's understanding of the wording of those letters was wrong and therefore the complaint is not substantiated.