NORTHERN IRELAND Policing Board members have queried how an attack on a Belfast church which provided refuge for intimidated Romanians could be portrayed as another in a series of loyalist racist attacks in Belfast.
Jimmy Spratt, DUP policing board member and MLA, complained at a board meeting yesterday that the attack on the City Church on Monday week was depicted as a loyalist racist attack when it should have been obvious that loyalists were unlikely to have been involved.
He made his complaint after BBC Northern Ireland reported that one of three young men arrested in connection with the smashing of windows of the church is a university student and the son of a Belfast-based QC.
Mr Spratt said it was “quite obvious that that leading QC would not come from the loyalist community”. This was an apparent reference to the QC’s nationalist background.
The family of the young man who was arrested told The Irish Times they had no comment to make on the matter.
None of the three men arrested has been charged in connection with the incident. Reports relating to two of the three were sent to the North’s Public Prosecution Service while a third man was released unconditionally.
Mr Spratt said police should have done more to state that the attack on the church was not a racist incident, which was the message that “went out right across the world”. Windows of the church were smashed six days after it had provided sanctuary for the Romanians. He said Northern Ireland was portrayed as a racist “capital”, which was absolutely wrong. “Police could have done more to have said it was not a racist attack,” he said.
Mr Spratt also queried how the media were able to be in position to film the three men as they were led away to be questioned by the PSNI last week from the student Holylands area of south Belfast. All three at the time concealed their faces with hoods of jackets they were wearing.
Sinn Féin board member and MLA Alex Maskey said he was in the City Church the morning after the breaking of the windows and watched CCTV footage showing the attack and the attackers. He believed the incident was “allowed to get out of hand, partly driven by media assumption that this was part of concerted, sinister racist intimidation”.
PSNI assist chief constable Alistair Finlay said the attacks were initially categorised as incidents of race hatred because that was how the City Church originally perceived the attacks. He added, however, that the alleged crimes that were investigated related to “criminal damage acts”.
In relation to the separate attacks on the members of the Roma community, most of whom last week returned to Romania because of the intimidation, PSNI chief constable Sir Hugh Orde said in total six people were arrested, with three of them charged and released on bail and three released on bail pending further inquiries.
“While it was an awful event I do think that the goodwill and the support of the overwhelming majority of the community in showing their disgust for it shows actually how far Northern Ireland has indeed come,” he said.
Yesterday was Sir Hugh Orde’s 63rd and last attendance at a public meeting of the board. He is due to stand down as chief constable after the marching season. Board chairman Barry Gilligan praised him for his “enormous enthusiasm, dedication and good humour”.
“Policing here will miss your straight talking and your dedication to good policing,” he told Sir Hugh.