Ombudsman report criticising the policing of Black Lives Matter is shocking, as is the PSNI rollover in response to it

Almost unreal things are happening in Northern Ireland on an almost daily basis.

The latest is the way that the police ombudsman’s office has criticised the PSNI for its policing of Black Lives Matters (BLM) protests in June.

The criticism was released yesterday, and the PSNI rolled over at once and apologised.

It is worth recapping on this saga. On June 3, there was a Black Lives Matter demonstration in the centre of Belfast.

It was a flagrant breach of the limit on limit on gatherings of more than six people. Many hundreds of people, by some estimates around 2,000, stood together in close proximity.

It smashed to smithereens any notion of social distancing. It made a mockery of all the people who had obediently followed guidance with regard to funerals of loved ones.

The PSNI did nothing about this.

Emboldened, the Black Lives Matters protestors arranged demonstrations for days later, on June 6, in Belfast and Londonderry. Politicians from across the spectrum urged them not to do this.

Given that hundreds of people had been fined in Northern Ireland in the lockdown after March 23, it was imperative that the police not only took action against such a calculated breach, but were seen to take action. They did. There were howls of protests from ‘human rights’ voices.

It is shocking that the police ombudsman has found that “the PSNI failed to demonstrate regard” for protestors’ freedom of expression and right to protest.

It is all the more shocking that the PSNI has apologised.

And it is further shocking that the political reaction to this appalling saga has been almost mute.

Yet if someone who has obeyed lockdown since March dares to fly home from England to Northern Ireland to see loved ones at Christmas on a trip booked under guidelines, and legitimate only days ago, they might be sent home.

What an illustration of a morally confused society.

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