Policing of UDA-linked gang violence sparks debate over tactics

​Ulster Unionist MLA Mike Nesbitt rejected claims that the police failed to deal appropriately with the situation, when up to 12 men with their faces covered, made their way through the town past schools and shops on Thursday causing alarm.

The men, believed to be one of two rival UDA-linked drugs gangs, eventually made their way to Weavers Grange where they were intercepted by police.

There have been a number of recent attacks on property in the general Newtownards and Bangor areas as a result of this feud – including a pipe bomb attack on a house with four children inside.

Mr Nesbitt said the relatively low-key approach taken by police on Thursday has been vindicated.

"Nobody got hurt. That crowd didn’t do any damage and I understand there have been arrests subsequently," he said.

"The police always have to make a judgement call between upholding the letter of the law and maintaining the peace. So if you are upholding the letter of the law, and you see a crowd masked up, perhaps with weapons, if you are upholding the letter of the law you go in and you intervene, but at the risk of violence, and of people getting hurt, potentially innocent people being hurt.

"If you want to maintain the peace, you observe and you gather evidence, and you make your arrests at a later moment when it’s safer to do so”.

However, former senior PSNI officer Jim Gamble believes the officers could have acted more decisively to “cut this cancer out of society”.

Mr Gamble said: "You need to be able to saturate this area because what's happening is, we've got these young thugs using the application of power by fear and... what we really need in the short term to break this cycle now is relentless policing."

Speaking on the Nolan radio show, he acknowledged that police have to be mindful not to act in a way that causes violent confrontation. But, he added, “there is a time and a place when you are going to have to be seen to deliver swift justice.

"These people are growing in confidence. Their egos are out of control, because they think they can do what they want without consequences."

The local police commander said that four people had been arrested in connection with the incident on Thursday, and described those involved in the feud as ”expelled members of what would have been south-east Antrim UDA and west Belfast UDA.”

Following discussions with the chief constable about the violence in Newtownards and an unrelated overnight shooting in west Belfast, DUP leader Sir Jeffrey Donaldson said: “There is only one police force in Northern Ireland.

“There should be no illegal guns on our streets whether that is in Newtownards or west Belfast. The police have my support to use whatever means necessary to rid our streets of these drug dealing, gun toting, knife wielding masked gangsters who are a plague in their communities.”