Hain: No complete handover of policing to paramilitaries

Paramilitaries in Northern Ireland will not be given a free licence to police their neighbourhoods through community restorative justice schemes, Peter Hain said today.

After he met members of a community justice scheme operating on a loyalist housing estate in Bangor, the Northern Ireland Secretary said all community justice schemes would have to involve the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

Mr Hain said during a visit to the Kilcooley Community Centre: “There will be community restorative justice guidelines published by my deputy, David Hanson, at the end of the month.

“They have been extensively consulted over and they will make it crystal clear that any CRJ schemes have to work with the criminal justice system and with the police, as this one is doing here.

“I think it is very important that we learn the lessons of that.

“This is not a licence to hand over community safety and policing to local paramilitaries or ex-paramilitaries.

“It is a way of binding the community together with the police and the community justice system, supervising everything.”

Last week Northern Ireland Office Minister David Hanson moved to reassure political opponents at Westminster and Northern Ireland parties that the PSNI would have a role in any community restorative justice programme that receive British government approval.

The Northern Ireland Policing Board, unionists and the SDLP have all expressed concern that republicans could use the schemes as an alternative police force, with stop and search powers.

Sinn Féin has denied the schemes, which already operate in Belfast, Derry and other parts of Northern Ireland are intended as an alternative to the PSNI.

Mr Hain said after his meeting with members of IMPACT (Initiative Making People Accountable for Community Trouble) in Bangor that it was the kind of model of community restorative justice that the government wished to see.

“Obviously I have been briefed a bit by those involved and the fact that the police are involved, working hand in hand with the local CRJ scheme is an important part of one of the principles that we are committed to,” he said.

“That is exactly what the scheme does. I am not aware of all of the detail, so I wouldn’t necessarily say that this is a model which has to be replicated elsewhere but the principles involved here of police involvement and the criminal justice system in the background providing an umbrella over the whole scheme, that must be fundamental to any successful CRJ scheme.”

IMPACT representative, Jim Rea, whose scheme has been operating on the Kilcooley Estate for two and a half years, said there were concerns that republicans were holding back community restorative justice because of their refusal to involve the PSNI in schemes.

“I thanked Mr Hain for coming to Kilcooley today. The question I put to him was we come under the umbrella of Northern Ireland Alternative Restorative Justice programme and we’re set up to tackle low level crime and anti-social behaviour, We’re ready to sign the protocols that the government is talking about, but are we being held back?

“We have been running for two and a half years. Low level crime and anti-social behaviour has dropped on this, the third largest housing estate in Northern Ireland.

“We think it sends out the right message. There are critics of restorative justice schemes but at the end of the day, what are they doing to stop punishment beatings or expulsions?”

Mr Rea said members of the PSNI sat on his organisation’s advisory committee which they were happy to have.