Bomb-attack policeman a hero, says Chief Constable

A Catholic police officer who survived a dissident republican car bomb is a hero, his chief constable said.

The Police Service of Northern Ireland’s (PSNI) top officer Matt Baggott paid tribute to Peadar Heffron, 33, as he remained in a serious condition in hospital after last week’s attack.

Amid suspicions that the high-profile constable was specifically targeted to dissuade other Catholics from joining the police, Mr Baggott made clear that the tactic would not work.

As captain of the PSNI’s gaelic football team and a fluent Irish speaker, Pc Heffron represents the changing face of a service that is steadily redressing a traditional religious imbalance in policing in the North.

He had just left his home outside Randalstown, Co Antrim, to start work in west Belfast when the device exploded under his blue Alfa Romeo car early on Friday morning.

Mr Baggott yesterday described the recently-married officer as a man of great courage.

“He is a modern-day hero, he is someone who has stepped out, someone who is doing the right things for everybody,” he said.

“What a fantastic officer he is and what a great man of courage, man who is doing all the right things in the community, saving people’s lives and helping people day in day out.

“I want to pay him that tribute today as he lies seriously injured in hospital as a result of this abhorrent attack.”

The chief constable said he was confident the attack would not dissuade other recruits from a nationalist background from joining the service.

He said the dissidents remain a small but dangerous group.

“We’ve always said the situation is severe,” he said at police headquarters in Belfast. “We have the resources to deal with it but what we need is more information all the time from the public and more support and more encouragement.”

The attacks come amid continuing wrangling at Stormont over the DUP and Sinn Féin’s failure to agree a timetable to devolve policing powers to the region.

Mr Baggott said that while he would welcome progress, it was up to the politicians to deliver it.

“We’ve always been very clear that we welcome stability and we welcome the devolution of policing and justice because that does create opportunities for more conversations and it does take away some of that oxygen from dissident groups,” he said.

Shocked neighbours rushed to help Pc Heffron, whose car careered sideways on the slippery Milltown Road at around 6.30am, half a mile from where he lived.

He was taken to hospital for emergency treatment before being transferred to the Royal Victoria in Belfast, where he remains in a critical condition.

Up to a dozen police cars escorted the ambulance as it drove along the M2 motorway into the city.

The explosion happened two miles from the Massereene Army barracks, where two soldiers just about to leave for Afghanistan were shot dead by the Real IRA last March.

Mark Quinsey, 23, and Patrick Azimkar, 21, were gunned down as they collected a pizza delivery outside the gates of the base.

First Minister Peter Robinson, Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness and Taoiseach Brian Cowen, as well as other politicians and church leaders on all sides, have condemned the bombing.

It is the latest in a series of attacks by dissidents and was virtually identical to one close to the PSNI headquarters, in which an officer’s girlfriend narrowly escaped death last October.

Last year Pc Heffron, who has served with the police for nine years, was among officers who attended the first meeting at which discussions in Derry between Policing Board officials and members of the public were conducted in Irish.

He also played a key role in establishing the PSNI’s gaelic football team and was this season’s captain.

He once played for Kickhams Creggan, a GAA club based in Randalstown.