Letter: PSNI chief has gone from failure to failure

By Letters

Published 21st Aug 2023, 08:00 BST

Updated 21st Aug 2023, 11:06 BST

Since Simon Byrne became chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland in July, 2019, he has as leader gone from one failure to another.

From attempting to rebrand and rename the police service to Police Service NI going so far as to get vehicles with the new livery commissioned costing thousands of pounds before backtracking after realising he did not have the support or even the authority to do so.

Then we had the Bobby Storey funeral or show of strength, handing the streets over to a mass gathering of republicans in the middle of a pandemic, his awful handling of junior officers at a gathering of people at the memorial to the Sean Graham murders on the anniversary of the atrocity.

With Simon Byrne’s past record I was amazed to find his contract was extended by a unanimous decision of the Policing Board on only May of this year and perhaps the policing board has serious questions to answer as well.

Then in recent weeks his leadership has been called into question once again by new revelations including the release of confidential information of over 10,000 police officers and support staff, the loss of laptops with confidential information and numerous other data breaches on a daily basis including the latest of a laptop and notebook left on the roof of a vehicle while the officer drove off.

Events so serious there was a complete systematic failure in procedures and chain of command.

Even the chairman of the Policing Board failed to show confidence in him at a recent board meeting like rank and file officers and many people in the general public have done long ago. In fact a recent opinion poll has found only 16% of people have confidence in Simon Byrne as chief constable.

Is there no accountability within the PSNI, after all the buck must stop at Mr. Byrne and for the good of the police service he should resign.

Or is it a case of just riding the storm until the next failure in his leadership which going by his woeful record will undoubtedly happen once again no matter how much more damage he does to the reputation of the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Stevan Patterson, Castlederg, Co Tyrone