Flanagan confirms stay as chief constable

Ronnie Flanagan is to stay on as Northern Ireland chief constable for an extra month.

After a Policing Board meeting in Belfast today was split over his immediate future it took the casting vote of chairman Professor Des Rea to delay his departure.

Mr Flanagan is due to retire next week but wanted to remain until his successor is appointed later this year.

However, nine members of the board dissatisfied with his handling of the Omagh bomb investigation were intent on getting rid of him.

Alex Attwood, one of the nationalist SDLP representatives on the 19-strong scrutinising body, claimed the move was a big mistake.

He declared: ‘‘The Chief Constable may continue in office for one month but he does so as a lame duck.’’

Mr Flanagan tonight confirmed he would accept the board’s offer to postpone his retirement for a month.

‘‘I would be honoured to continue to lead the men and women of what I have always known to be the best police service in the world,’’ he said.

Despite remaining at his desk for another four weeks he still departs before the first new recruits under the Patten policing reforms complete their training on April 5.

At today’s meeting the absence of the SDLP’s South Down MP Eddie McGrady for personal reasons left members split nine to nine before Prof Rea decided the issue.

Had Mr McGrady been present Mr Flanagan’s tenure would have come to an end next Thursday.

Advertisements for what is one of the toughest policing jobs in the world are set to be placed within the next two weeks.

The post is unlikely to be filled until this autumn, leaving deputy chief constable Colin Cramphorn to act up after Mr Flanagan leaves at the end of March.

Nationalists on the board had been pressing for Mr Flanagan to go since Northern Ireland Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan’ criticised his leadership in her report into the Omagh bomb investigation.

Relatives of some of the 29 people killed in the August 1998 Real IRA atrocity have already declared they have lost confidence in the chief constable.

But despite SDLP members being joined by a majority of independents on the board unionists managed to resist their demands.

‘‘His bacon was saved by the casting vote of the chairman of the policing board,’’ Mr Attwood said.

Although Prof Rea voted to retain Mr Flanagan until the end of March, vice-chairman Dennis Bradley had backed calls for him to quit next week.

Mr Bradley, the former priest who helped broker the IRA ceasefire, claimed this showed the board’s maturity.

‘‘We agreed to disagree and spoke our personal feelings on this,’’ he said.

It is understood Mr Flanagan offered to speak to the board today before it reached a decision.

But members, who agreed earlier this month to appoint an outside officer to oversee a new hunt for the Real IRA gang behind the Omagh atrocity which claimed 29 lives, turned him down.

Unionists on the board said the decision would minimise disruption while they searched for the new chief constable.

Fred Cobain, one of the four Ulster Unionists, said the move was in the best interests of the Northern Ireland police service.

‘‘In order to have a seamless handover a number of matters have to be cleared up,’’ he said.

Sammy Wilson, one of the Democratic Unionist representatives, claimed the board would have been issuing a vote of no-confidence on Mr Flanagan’s handling of the Omagh inquiry if members had asked him to go next week.

‘‘By giving him another month’s grace we have ensured that isn’t the perception,’’ he said.