Editorial: That the Police Ombudsman still sits in judgement of PSNI officers reflects an abject political failure at Stormont

​There was a call yesterday for the Police Ombudsman Marie Anderson to quit now.

​This should have happened some time ago. In fact, she should have been dismissed. Yet in fairness to the outgoing ombudsman, who is expected to leave office this month, she did offer to resign – some years ago.

The Ulster Unionist MLA Jon Burrows – who is already one of Stormont’s most effective politicians months after he joined the assembly and who called on Ms Anderson to go – told the chamber on Monday that she offered to quit as PSNI watchdog the day after police were called to her home over a domestic incident in 2023. He said the then permanent secretary of the Department of Justice Richard Pengelly decided to “take no action” on the offer.

Stormont was down at the time, and power was in the hands of civil servants. This newspaper said at the time repeatedly that it was intolerable for neutral officials to be expected to make highly political and contentious decisions – we said that London should have taken control of power in NI. The exact circumstances of the refusal to accept the ombudsman’s offer to resign must emerge.

A long investigation, involving two external police forces, into the 2023 domestic incident – which led to Ms Anderson standing aside from her role for more than a year – led to no criminal charge. She is back in post.

However, there has been a disgraceful lack of transparency around what happened, amid claims that police could not access her property. Given that Ms Anderson sits in judgement on police officers, we need total clarity on such claims. It is an abject failure of the political and legal systems that someone can preside over often highly contentious rulings against police officers past and present amidst serious claims about her own conduct. If those claims are wrong, then this should long ago have been cleared up so that confidence in her could be restored.