No clarity from chief constable over claim of parade probe 'apology' to Colum Eastwood

A police probe began after Mr Eastwood walked with some of the Bloody Sunday families, and other elected representatives, to a court hearing in relation to the prosecution of Soldier F last August.

The procession was deemed by the Public Prosecution Service to have breached the legislation governing parading in Northern Ireland, however, the PPS also said it was not in the public interest to prosecute anyone involved.

Following the ‘no prosecution’ decision on Thursday, Foyle DUP MLA Gary Middleton said the case “raises questions about the consistency of approach from the Public Prosecution Service, particularly if they take forward prosecutions in the future”.

In December, Mr Eastwood said he had attended a police station in the city for an interview under caution, but walked out after 20 minutes when no one came to speak to him.

Speaking to the BBC on Friday, Mr Eastwood said he had received a phone call from police – including an apology for how they had handled their investigation.

Mr Eastwood said: “The area commander phoned me first, and then Jon Boutcher phoned me over the weekend [following the missed interview] to apologise – well he was trying to explain the circumstances around the individual issue in terms of me, and I was more interested in the fact that the family members faced any kind of potential prosecution.”

When asked by the News Letter to clarify if Chief Constable Jon Boutcher had issued an apology to Mr Eastwood as described, a PSNI spokeswoman said: “This was a private conversation between the chief constable and Mr Eastwood in December 2023.”

The PPS said that after “careful consideration of all evidence submitted by police and the full context in which the procession took place, decisions were taken not to prosecute all seven on public interest grounds”.

The PPS said the procession involved a small number of people, it was peaceful and caused no public disorder, there was no inconvenience to traffic or the public and no complaints from members of the community.

Jamie Bryson, who made the original complaint to the PSNI regarding the unnotified procession, said it would be an “extraordinary” situation if the chief constable had apologised as described.

“Mr Eastwood is not above the law,” Mr Bryson said.

"It is almost as if nationalists find it disgraceful that the law would be applied to them in the same way it is applied to unionists and loyalists.

“The PPS, notwithstanding their bizarre reasoning for not prosecuting, explicitly made clear the offence had been committed by Mr Eastwood and others. The evidential test for prosecution was met.”

He added: “Are we so far gone into the two tier policing and justice system that even investigating nationalists now warrants an apology?” There has never been any apology to unionists/loyalists for prosecutions or even arrests under parading law. Why the two tier standards?”