MLA: I hope Dolores Kelly reflects on her remarks about the RUC being sectarian

I refer to comments Dolores Kelly MLA has been reported as having made in which she described the RUC as representing “institutional sectarianism”.

My colleague Mike Nesbitt MLA who serves on the Northern Ireland Policing Board has called on her to apologise as has the NI Retired Police Officers Association.

I was proud to have served in the RUC Part Time Reserve from 1973 to 1987. My motivation was not driven by sectarianism but by a desire to help the RUC to protect every person in the community during a terrorism campaign that was killing innocent people, destroying property and our local economy on a daily basis.

My part time colleagues included teachers, doctors, pharmacists, nurses business people and representatives from every walk of life, religion and creed. These volunteers didn’t put on a uniform and work long and dangerous hours over and above their daily employment hours to assist in any sectarianism. Like myself they made a decision to play their part in keeping the peace. They put their heads above the parapet, put their personal safety and that of their families on the line, making many sacrifices to their quality of life in doing so.

They were targets for terrorists 24/7 whether in or out of uniform and remained so even when they left the service. It was a life of constantly looking over your shoulder.

The serious insult Dolores Kelly has directed at an entire organisation that lost over 300 members, many of them part time colleagues, is unfair, untrue and unwarranted. I realise that the history rewriters will have their own twisted opinions.

What she has described is not what I experienced serving alongside some of the bravest and most dedicated public servants, both full and part time, you could wish to meet.

I hope that she will reflect on her remarks.

Alan Chambers, Ulster Unionist MLA, North Down

Mike Nesbitt joins calls for apology over MLA’s ‘sectarian’ RUC comments

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