Ex-RUC officer defects from SDLP to Sinn Féin

A FORMER police officer in the North who served with three colleagues shot dead by the IRA has become the first SDLP councillor to join Sinn Féin since the Assembly elections, it emerged yesterday.

Billy Leonard, 49, a councillor from Portstewart, Co Derry, stunned colleagues in the SDLP by switching to the republican movement. “I believe Sinn Féin has the vision, strategy and commitment to cater for my political aspirations.”

Mr Leonard, a Protestant, and former lay preacher once served as an officer in the Royal Ulster Constabulary’s reserve force in Lurgan, Co Armagh. He had become disillusioned with the SDLP, particularly after his failure to be chosen to stand in elections to the Northern Ireland Assembly in November, said friends.

He has also resigned his seat on a district policing partnership, advisory body in Coleraine, Co Derry, because of the republican leadership’s refusal to endorse the policing arrangements in the North.

Even though he had withdrawn his nomination to become the party’s next chairman and faxed his resignation to the party’s HQ, his closest associates were shocked by the decision of one of their most senior members on the north coast to change sides. It is a huge blow to the SDLP, still reeling from serious electoral reverses in November’s poll when Sinn Féin emerged the largest nationalist party.

Mr Leonard, a project officer at the University of Ulster in Derry where he works on research into conflict resolution, said he thought long and hard about his move. Loyalists issued a number of death threats against him and his home was paint bombed last June.

Three colleagues were killed by the IRA when he was a member of the RUC’s reserve force for five years in the mid-1970’s.

Cyril Wilson, aged 37, was ambushed in Craigavon, Co Armagh, on St Patrick’s Day, 1974. Paddy Maxwell, aged 36, died when his patrol car was sprayed with gunfire near Pomeroy, County Tyrone on November 25, 1975, and Tommy Cush, aged 60, was gunned down at a security barrier in Lurgan on July 31, 1976.

Mr Leonard said: “A lot of water has passed under the bridge since then. I am not trying to minimise anyone’s death. They were friends and associates whom I knew well. We have closed the book on that sort of tragedy, but we also want to turn a new leaf. I also knew officers who were involved in (loyalist) paramilitary activity and some of them went to jail for it. I’ve seen both sides of the coin.”

He is the first SDLP councillor to join Sinn Féin, although there have been previous defections, including Mary Nelis, Derry, who is not a member of the Stormont Assembly.

Mr Leonard said: “I believe Sinn Féin is committed to building a just peace. It is obvious to me it is also willing to discharge its responsibilities with unionists and determined to stand against unionist intransigence when required.”

The party’s national chairman Mitchel McLaughlin said: “It is a courageous decision and I am sure it was not taken lightly.”

There was disbelief and disappointment among former associates, who claimed he had signalled an interest to become a full-time adviser at Stormont once the power-sharing executive in Belfast was restored. One urged him to resign from Coleraine Borough Council where SF had no representation, accusing him of putting personal ambition before party principles.