AN INDEPENDENT member of the North’s policing board – which oversees the PSNI and holds its Chief Constable to account – has defended a rise in the number of PSNI officers suspended on full pay as a sign of “a robust process”.
While conceding the latest figures were up on previous years – with a corresponding cost increase – Ryan Feeney said the statistics showed that “the PSNI takes ethics very seriously and holds its officers to the highest standards”.
He also said the option to appeal a suspension – with appeals heard before the policing board – was “unique in these islands” and ensured “every officer gets a fair hearing”.
He added that reforms to the system, including bringing the cost down, were in the pipeline.
The latest figures reveal that 33 PSNI officers were suspended from July 2011 to July 2012. Two officers were dismissed and four were required to resign over the same period.
Allegations included assault, a sexual offence, death threats, perjury and being drunk in charge of a loaded firearm. The total bill for salaries paid to suspended officers during the period was £265,000.
The figures are the highest for a 12-month period since 2008, when 36 officers were suspended.
From January 2007 to December 2011, 123 PSNI officers were suspended, from a force of 8,500 full- and part-time officers.
During the same period, 203 officers were suspended from London’s Metropolitan Police, out of a total 32,000 officers.
Chief Supt Mark Hamilton, who is responsible for discipline in the PSNI, confirmed that reform of the system was under way to make investigations into alleged misbehaviour more “expedient”.
“If you woke up this morning and heard those figures, you would rightly be alarmed that police officers are engaged in this sort of conduct. I would want to reassure the public that the fact that we have 33 officers suspended indicates that we are holding our officers to a very high level of accountability, on and off duty.”
A PSNI spokesman added: “The police service expects its staff to behave professionally, ethically and with the utmost integrity at all times. Any conduct . . . which brings, or is likely to bring, discredit . . . will be investigated to establish whether a breach of the code of ethics has occurred.
“The decision to suspend an officer is only taken in exceptional circumstances,” he said.