Samuel Morrison: Keeping the process on track trumps everything with regard to policing in Northern Ireland

Last year a senior member of the Apprentice Boys of Derry got a phone call to say that papers containing his details were blowing around in a garden in Bushmills.

Following collection of these and a meeting of the local amalgamated committee it transpired that these were documents the police had obtained from the Parades Commission.

They included the names, addresses and phone numbers of a member of every branch club in Garvagh, Coleraine, Bushmills, Rasharkin and the outlying areas.

Following meetings with the police and an internal investigation held by them, a PSNI officer eventually admitted to having dropped the documents in Bushmills by accident.

Any one of the above incidents would have been enough to merit a major investigation into the way in which the Police Service of Northern Ireland handles data and fundamental changes.

But to this day, no one can so much as cite an example of someone who has lost their employment with the PSNI due to their carelessness in these cases.

The most recent examples are more than enough to merit the head of the chief constable, Simon Byrne, but there are few even demanding that course of action.

I suspect that in truth Mr Byrne has played the political game of policing well enough to survive a while yet.

Yes, he did pose with a weapon outside Crossmaglen PSNI station but his penance, which involved hiring Community Restorative Justice (CRJ) to conduct research for a review into policing in South Armagh, was deemed sufficient.

The fact that Harry Maguire, who received a life sentence for his role in the abduction and murder of corporals Derek Howes and David Wood after they strayed into the path of an IRA funeral in 1988, was working with CRJ at the time was all to the good.

A chief constable who has backed a report which proposes hiding memorials to murdered officers in back rooms, Irish language signage on stations and “joint rather than parallel policing” with a foreign police force (the Garda) nailed his political colours to the mast a long time ago, I would say.

That's before we even consider the PSNI's shameful facilitating of the Bobby Storey funeral during lockdown, the repeated failures of the PSNI to defend the honourable legacy of the RUC or even the attempt there has been to airbrush reference to Northern Ireland from the name of the force.

Far from the structures of the Belfast Agreement increasing accountability, they made the PSNI the most political police service in Western Europe.

An ability to play your part in keeping the process on track trumps everything else.

The current chief constable has shown a great ability to keep on the right side of those who he needs to politically and for that reason I expect him to survive even though he doesn't deserve to.

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Owen Polley is on holiday