Simon Byrne, the Chief Constable, cannot escape responsibility for this huge failure, which has already caused irreparable damage
August is often referred to as the “silly season” by politicians as the media search around for stories in the absence of political coverage from Westminster. But the furore around the publication of information on thousands of police officers in Northern Ireland is not a media generated storm to fill a light news agenda. It is one of the most serious breaches of secret and sensitive data ever experienced by any police force in the UK and has immense implications for the safety of officers, morale within the PSNI and future recruitment of police officers in NI.
It would be a travesty of justice if the police hierarchy were to hide behind the excuse that the failure was on the part of some junior administrator or officer in order to duck the responsibility of a management team which has overseen too many damaging mistakes and errors of judgement.
Let there be no doubt about it: this security breach will be used by republican terrorists who seek to target police officers in NI. As someone who lived through the IRA murder campaign and served for a number of years in the RUC Reserve, I know the low level precautions that police officers were encouraged to take from checking under cars for booby traps to varying routes to work right down to not hanging uniform shirts on the outside clothes line since that could be a giveaway that a police officer lived there. Even today there are police officers who don’t let their friends and family know about their job in case the information falls into the hands of murdering terrorists. Yet, despite all the personal precautions officers take, all their efforts can be made null and void by a huge gift of information by the PSNI itself.
I can understand the anger and frustration of police officers at this security failure and that anger will mount if the Chief Constable, Simon Byrne, is not held to account for it. The Policing Board which is meant to hold the Chief Constable to account has an important role to play as they seek to restore confidence among officers and the public. They must not let their judgement be coloured by the fact that they recently renewed the Chief Constable’s contract.