'Disbelief' over ex-prisoners plan

Government is to change policing legislation

Having people with a "terrorist background" as independent members of local policing boards will undermine their integrity, the Northern Ireland Police Federation has warned.

The government has proposed changing the law to allow former paramilitary prisoners to sit on Northern Ireland's District Policing Partnerships.

The change is one of a number demanded by Sinn Fein, which at present refuses to take its two seats on the Policing Board, the body that oversees the Police Service of Northern Ireland.

In a speech in Cardiff on Tuesday, Irwin Montgomery, Chairman of the Police Federation for Northern Ireland, expressed his "disbelief" at the plan and claimed it would prevent "ordinary decent people" from joining the boards.

Irwin Montgomery: Disbelief at inclusion of ex-paramilitaries

He said there was a difference between people with paramilitary backgrounds appointed "quite properly by the democratic process and those selected by government to serve as a sop to any political party".

"An independent appointee who has terrorist baggage is by definition far from independent. Appointing such people devalues the meaning of the word.

"More importantly such appointees will deter ordinary decent people, who know what their communities' law and priorities are, from coming forward," he said.

Northern Ireland Secretary Paul Murphy announced the measure as part of draft legislation on policing published on Monday.

He said the change to the law governing policing would be conditional on republicans and loyalists engaging in what it called "acts of completion".

But while Sinn Fein and the SDLP said the proposals to change the legislation did not go far enough, both the Ulster Unionist Party and Democratic Unionist Party were critical of the idea of allowing "criminals" to sit on the boards.