SDLP leader Colum Eastwood has been reported to the UK parliament’s standards watchdog after he said he would not take part in a criminal investigation into an alleged unnotified parade involving the Bloody Sunday families.
The complaint has been raised by loyalist activist Jamie Bryson who accused Mr Eastwood of seeking to “place himself above the law”.
But the SDLP leader said nothing would stop him standing with the Bloody Sunday families in their campaign for justice.
Last month, Mr Eastwood, the MP for Foyle, walked out of Strand Road police station in Derry after being asked to attend an interview under caution.
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Police are investigating a complaint made by Mr Bryson in relation to an event on August 25th, which saw members of the Bloody Sunday families walking together to Bishop Street Courthouse in Derry for a hearing in relation to the prosecution of Soldier F.
At issue in the investigation is whether the August event fell under legislation in Northern Ireland that requires organisers of public processions to give advance notice to the Parades Commission. It is an offence to organise or participate in an unnotified parade or related protest.
Mr Eastwood said he had attended the PSNI station last month to inform officers that no Bloody Sunday families would be taking part in the investigation.
He said he waited for 20 minutes but had not been interviewed and branded the situation a “total and utter farce”, adding that he would not be partaking in the investigation any further.
At the time, the SDLP leader said if the police wanted to arrest him, they knew his address.
Mr Bryson confirmed he had now complained to Westminster’s Parliamentary Commissioner for Standards Daniel Greenberg. Mr Eastwood is an MP.
He said: “Mr Eastwood has sought to place himself above the law, and it could be argued has interfered to an impermissible level in an ongoing criminal investigation, in which he is himself a self-identified suspect.
“Parading law has been rigorously applied to the unionist and loyalist community; indeed I was held in prison in 2013 for precisely the same offence as that alleged against Mr Eastwood.
“Therefore, equality under the law requires that the same rigour is applied to all citizens.
“There is no exemption in the law for those who self-perceive themselves as having a legitimate cause, the only exemptions are funerals and the Salvation Army, neither of which avails Mr Eastwood.
“His case appears to be that because the cause for which he marched was legitimate, that the law ought not to apply to him and his fellow marchers. That is a bizarre proposition.”
Mr Bryson added: “This is not, and has never been, about the Bloody Sunday families who are entitled to pursue what they see as justice through the prism of their view of contentious legacy matters.
“The criminal complaint is about the equal application of the law.”
Mr Bryson said he believed the SDLP leader was in breach of the House of Commons code of conduct.
Mr Eastwood responded: “I’ve been clear that there is nothing that will ever stop me from standing with the Bloody Sunday families in their campaign for justice.
“These are people who had their loved ones murdered, their names blackened and justice denied for more than 50 years.
“They have, and will always have, my full support.”
Mr Eastwood said he was not surprised by the complaint, adding “everybody can see this for what it is”.
The MP’s lawyer had previously said that police were looking to speak to a number of relatives of Bloody Sunday victims after they walked to the court last year.
Soldier F, a former paratrooper who cannot be identified, is accused of murdering James Wray and William McKinney when members of the Parachute Regiment shot dead 13 civil rights protesters on the streets of Derry in 1972 in an event known as Bloody Sunday.
He is also charged with five attempted murders.
Regarded as one of the darkest days of the Troubles, 13 people were killed on Bloody Sunday and another man shot by paratroopers died four months later.
Many consider him the 14th victim of Bloody Sunday but his death was formally attributed to an inoperable brain tumour. -PA
