Northern Ireland’s chief constable today stood by his controversial decision to axe a police reserve unit and rejected any suggestion he was politically pressured into the move.

Army explosives teams in the North dealt with more than 750 dissident republican bomb alerts in the past two years, a police officers body said today.

Policing Board chairman Desmond Rea today faced internal demands to quit as a major new row flared over Northern Ireland’s Full-Time Reserve.