'Policing reforms under serious threat from dissident republicans'

The North’s Police Oversight Commissioner has claimed that policing reforms in the North are under serious threat due to a campaign of intimidation by dissident republics.

Several nationalist members of the Policing Board and District Policing Partnerships throughout the North have received death threats from dissident republicans due to their support for the PSNI.

The Oversight Commission, Tom Considine, said today that the threats would pose the biggest test for the policing reforms negotiated as part of the Good Friday Agreement.

"I know this won’t work, because I have met a number of people serving on the DPPs and I don’t see people who are intimidated," he added. "I see determined and courageous people."

Sinn Féin president Gerry Adams later defended his party’s continuing refusal to endorse the PSNI.

"We did make quite considerable progress in terms of moving policing towards the Good Friday Agreement vision of a new beginning to policing, but it not yet a reality," he said.

"That is particularly true on the vexed issue of the need to transfer power so that policing is locally accountable to politicians who are locally accountable also. Mr Considine and anybody else can say anything they want on this issue, but we represent the largest number of nationalist in this state. Our position is that what is on offer on policing is not good enough."