DUP furious over councillor's arrest

Police in the North were accused of making a “sensationalist” arrest yesterday after detaining a hardline loyalist Belfast city councillor over remarks she made about a disputed parade.

Ruth Patterson, 57, a member of first minister Peter Robinson’s Democratic Unionist Party, was held in relation to offences concerning the sending of grossly offensive communications and other serious criminal offences in relation to intimidation and encouraging criminal acts, according to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).

Earlier she had to apologise after saying that a fictional terrorist attack on a republican parade in which senior Sinn Féin members would be killed would provide “a great service to Northern Ireland”.

A Democratic Unionist statement said: “We fail to understand why the police chose to conduct a sensationalist arrest rather than contact Ruth and ask her to attend an Article 10 voluntary interview.”

She made the Facebook remark ahead of a planned republican rally in Castlederg, Co Tyrone, tomorrow week to commemorate the deaths of two IRA men blown up 30 years ago by a bomb which they intended to plant in the town, just a few miles from the border with Co Donegal.

The DUP spokesman contrasted Ms Patterson’s treatment with that of Sinn Féin members.

“Ruth was guilty of an error in judgement: others in Sinn Féin are guilty of far more serious crimes,” he said.