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Policing - in brief (22)

01 January 2005

UK: Ex-RUC chief new Chief Inspector of Constabulary. Sir Ronnie Flanagan, the last chief constable of Northern Ireland's discredited Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) police force before it became the Police Service of Northern Ireland, is to become the new Chief Inspector of Constabulary. Flanagan, who has been an Inspector of Constabulary in England and Wales since 2002, will succeed Sir Keith Povey who was appointed in 2002. Flanagan will earn £189,000 annually. His appointment has caused dismay in nationalist areas of Northern Ireland where he is remembered firstly for his work at the head of the Special Branch, which stands accused of being involved in organising and covering-up the murder of civil liberties lawyer Pat Finucane. Flanagan also played a key role in combined loyalist/RUC assaults on the Garvaghy Road in the mid-1990s. Recently, Flanagan has been strongly criticised over the police investigation into the Omagh bombing, which the Special Branch is said to have known about in advance. Sir Ronnie received his knighthood in the New Years Honours List in December 1998. Appointment announced in Home Office press release 029/2005, 8.2.05.

UK: Police probe officer for anti-Muslim comments. An internal inquiry has been initiated after Superintendent David Keller of the Greater Manchester police force was alleged to have made "inappropriate remarks" about Muslims during a security meeting at Longsight police station last November. Keller has not been suspended from duty and the exact words used in his remarks have not been repeated. However, the Guardian newspaper reports that the comments called "for the setting up of machine guns to stop the Muslims flowing into the city centre to celebrate Eid Al-Fitr". The Police Superintendents Association, which supports the officer, told the paper that Keller did not believe that his comments were racist or anti-Islamic. In June 2004 the newspaper revealed that Greater Manchester was one of 14 police forces found by the Commission for Racial Equality to have broken race relations laws. In 2003 it was one of several police forces whose officers were filmed by the BBC making racist comments that were described as "truly shocking". Guardian 9.12.04