Jamie Bryson: Police grill loyalists days after alleged social distancing breach, but Sinn Fein not for six months

(Scroll down for an article about police questioning Jim Wilson)

There will be few who will fail to understand why this approach to the celebrations of the football club’s 55th league title has further solidified the feeling that there is very much a system of two-tier policing in Northern Ireland, with operational and investigative decision making very much subservient to placating Sinn Fein and their supporters.

Following the funeral of IRA leader Bobby Storey the PSNI did not have detectives descend upon any of the alleged participants; to do so would have upset Sinn Fein.

Rather, after six months and only due to the issue of a statute of limitations being raised by this writer and followed up by the News Letter’s Sam McBride and the BBC’s Stephen Nolan, letters were sent to republicans to begin a process of ‘negotiation’ as to the holding of a voluntary interview.

There is no plausible operational or investigative reason for this disparity of treatment, therefore the only logical conclusion is that it is simply another example of policing bending over backwards to avoid encountering the political wrath of republicans.

We can also look at the Black Lives Matters protests.

Alleged organisers and participants were interviewed by the PSNI under the Serious Crime Act.

I am not joking.

The PSNI actually reached for this legislation — the relevant sections of which is designed for encouraging or assisting serious crime — and sought to deploy it for ‘encouraging or assisting’ a peaceful protest in breach of Covid.

So outrageous was this that the PPS had to issue guidance, and via a public statement very subtly sought to distance themselves from this approach.

In recent weeks we have seen 19 loyalists arrested in relation to an apparent public order incident in Pitt Park, East Belfast.

Whatever about that fact-sensitive nature of that particular gathering, and that is ultimately for a court to determine, it plainly was not an ‘act of terrorism’.

Nevertheless, the PSNI reached for the Terrorism Act, under pressure, I suspect, from republicans.

They have had to release 19 persons unconditionally in relation to the Terrorism Act.

At no point does someone in the PSNI question the proportionality of their actions?

When it came to a gathering on the Ormeau Road which led to the now infamous incident at a commemoration outside Sean Graham’s bookmakers, the chief constable under pressure decided to de-arrest a person arrested, abandon any public order investigation and instead go on national television — unsurping the role of the Police Ombudsman — to pronounce guilt upon two of his own officers (by suspending them and saying that their policing “was not reflective of the values” of the PSNI).

Gone was the need for due process or fairness to the officers; gone was the need to even investigate the alleged gathering and whether it breached Covid or whether there were any public order offences, rather the political priority of appeasing Sinn Fein and their supporters trumps all — even basic legal principles.

I have written many times in this newspaper about how loyalists feel there is inequality in the application of the law.

In recent months political unionism appears to have also woken up to this reality and started raising the issue.

It has become so overt and blatant that it can simply no longer be ignored.

We now face a situation whereby the PSNI is, in my personal view, institutionally biased in favour of Sinn Fein and their section of the republican community.

It seems like all aspects of policing are subservient to the political requirements of the ‘process’; chief amongst which is an insatiable need to placate republicans.

I note the PSNI, post their Black Lives Matter debacle, have placed significant focus upon engaging with members of the black community affected by the policing of that event.

That is admirable and proper, however will the PSNI ever be seeking to engage with loyalist communities in order to seek to build relationships and repair the damage of what is seen to be well over a decade of two-tier policing?

It seems to me that the PSNI view the loyalist community as low hanging fruit.

They can act as disproportionately as they wish, but they know there will be no real political comeback.

And if there needs to be a display for robust policing force in order to win the trust of republicans, then such tactics can simply be deployed against loyalists.

As aforementioned, part of this is down to the fact loyalists receive negligible political support from elected representatives on such issues given political unionism’s misplaced propensity for showing deference to the police.

However, loyalists must also do more to challenge injustices.

Rather than simply getting angry, turn that anger into activism and force the accountability and legal mechanisms to do their job for loyalists as much as anyone else.

• Leading loyalist Jim Wilson angry at PSNI double standards on policing Covid regulations

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