Police Ombudsman assures us Storey funeral probe cannot run out of time, says Policing Board member

Board member and DUP MLA Mervyn Storey says he has been given assurances by the Police Ombudsman that the PSNI investigation into alleged breaches of Covid regulations at the funeral in June will not become statute barred by time.

The attendance of republican crowds at the funeral of the senior republican, including leading Sinn Fein figures, has been a point of major political controversy due to claims that Covid restrictions had been breached.

There had been concerns that if the PSNI investigation went on longer than six months it would be legally impossible for police to charge any suspects.

It is understood that senior Sinn Fein figures have still not been interviewed about their role in the funeral.

However Mr Storey said he has been assured this will not be the case.

”I have got an assurance from the Ombudsman in relation to this issue that the investigation won’t be statute barred, that it won’t go beyond the period of time [to charge suspects] and if it does there is a process which allows that to continue,” he told the Nolan Show today.

He added that the Chief Constable gave the Policing Board an assurance last week that they were not “running the clock down” on the investigation.

However Mr Storey said there was grave concern about how the PSNI is handling the investigation, in comparison to how it has enforced pandemic regulations in other situations such as in house parties, churches, Black Lives Matter protests and a charity swimming event in Helen’s Bay in north Down last month. So far the PSNI has issued 6,200 official fines or notices for breaches of pandemic restrictions.

Mr Storey added: “There is a grave concern, that has been raised by us repeatedly at the Policing Board, in relation to the perception of the different way that the police are approaching this particular incident as opposed to whether it is swimmers at a beach, or people attending a church service.

“But the perception in people’s minds is that five months after the event, why are we still in a process of discussion with those who are in breach of those regulations when on other occasions there was swift action taken.”He added: The police have a very difficult job to do here in terms of trying to police all of this, however there cannot be a rule of law for one and a rule of law for another.”

Asked what the situation is doing to the reputation of the PSNI, he said people believe they are seeing double standards.

”It creates a challenge for us where I get people repeatedly saying to me ‘What is going on? Why are we having double standards?’”

His colleague John Bunting has repeatedly told the Policing Board there is a “perception in unionist areas that there is two tier policing”.

Mr Storey said he had repeatedly told the Chief Constable and other senior officers that “this is an issue that they cannot ignore”.

He added: “We had very high profile protests in relation to Black Lives Matter and I think that there was an approach taken there that created a challenge for the police and they were criticized for what they did.”

Last month the Policing Board said the PSNI’s reputation was damaged by its handling of the Black Lives Matter protests in Belfast and Londonderry in June.The board questioned whether the PSNI approach was lawful and called for a review of all fines and prosecutions from the rallies.

Mr Storey said he wanted to see full transparency in the PSNI investigation into the Bobby Storey funeral.

He directed his comments to Chief Constable Simon Byrne and Cumbria Deputy Chief Constable Mark Webster - who was brought in by Mr Byrne in July ‘to ensure independent oversight’.

“The message is to continue to ensure that the investigation is thorough in every aspect of the investigation - who knew what was organised? To whom did the police speak? What were the arrangements?”

He said the PSNI must probe all the component parts of the funeral “which created this crisis”.

”And that investigation has to be thorough and has to bring us to a point where the public has confidence that one organisation and its followers are not treated differently compared to whether you were swimming on the beach or attending a church service or whether you had a house party.”

TUV leader Jim Allister said: “The longer the police ‘investigation’ of the Storey funeral drags on the more suspicious I am that the PSNI’s position is seriously compromised.”

He said complete transparency was needed on whether the PSNI had helped Sinn Fein plan the funeral and if so whether the police knew what scale of people would be attending. This issue could impact on potential prosecutions, he said.

A Police Service of Northern Ireland Spokesperson said: “This issue remains a live investigation, and we will not be making any further comment so as not to prejudice any decision made by the Public Prosecution Service in due course.”

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