DUP join TUV in calling for an end to Simon Byrne's reign as PSNI Chief Constable following High Court ruling that two officers were unlawfully disciplined to placate Sinn Fein

Hot on the heels of a series of catastrophic data breaches, the PSNI Chief Constable accepting a High Court judge’s ruling that the two officers disciplined for their actions during a Troubles commemoration in 2021 had been punished unlawfully.

TUV leader Jim Allister had been the first to call for the “spineless” Mr Byrne to go yesterday.

At that time the DUP’s Trevor Clarke had said the officers had been “thrown to the wolves by their own bosses to placate Sinn Fein”.

Today the parties position hardened with Mr Clarke said the Chief Constable’s position had become "untenable".

"It's clear the officers don't have confidence and now politicians don't have confidence and clearly the public won't have confidence, so I think if you work out the consequences from that the only option open to Simon is to resign at this stage," he told BBC News NI's Good Morning Ulster.

Ulster Unionist Party Leader Doug Beattie MC MLA and UUP Policing Board representative Mike Nesbitt MLA said yesterday they had written to the Chief Constable calling for an urgent meeting in response to the High Court ruling.

Mr Nesbitt said: “It is unacceptable that a political party can influence policing and the duty status of any police officer. Doug and I shall be making clear our view and seeking to establish how this happened, on what other occasions it may have happened and how the Chief Constable intends to reassure the public it can never happen again.”

One probationary constable was suspended and his colleague re-positioned following an outcry at how police handled a service marking an anniversary of the February 1992 Sean Graham bookmakers attack.

The commemoration which was attended by up to 30 people took place in February 2021 when Covid-19 restrictions were in place. The two officers detained one man on suspicion of disorderly behaviour

Chief Constable Simon Byrne later apologised for the incident and confirmed the disciplinary steps taken against the two recently-recruited officers.

In the aftermath the Chief Constable and his deputy were contacted by Sinn Fein’s Michelle O’Neill and Gerry Kelly, who were unhappy that the arrest had been made on the Ormeau Road while there had been no immediate police intervention at an alleged loyalist show of strength at Pitt Park in east Belfast days earlier.

Mr Justice Scoffield said: “Both the Deputy Chief Constable and the Chief Constable were acutely aware of the threat of Sinn Fein withdrawing support for policing and/or withdrawing from the Policing Board if immediate action was not taken in respect of the officers’ duty status.

“It is impossible to avoid the conclusion that the pressure so exerted was, in large measure, a result of a wholly separate and unrelated (Pitt Park) incident which was wrongly conflated with the actions of the applicants in the incident in which they were involved.

“I have been persuaded that the respondent imposed suspension in the first applicant’s case because of the threat (whether real or perceived) that, if it did not do so, republican support for policing would be withdrawn.

“To reach a decision on that basis was in my view unlawful.”