The Independent Police Commission plans to hold public sessions in the community, its chair man, the former Hong Kong governor Mr Chris Patten, has said. The commission, which was set up under the Northern Ireland Agreement to review policing in the North, will also look at the experience of police forces in other countries.
Mr Patten was speaking at a press conference in Belfast yesterday to introduce the seven other members of the commission. He expressed confidence that the group could deliver its report before the deadline of next June, but declined to answer questions relating to the substance of its work.
Earlier, the commission met the RUC Chief Constable, Mr Ronnie Flanagan. On Thursday, it held an informal meeting with the Northern Ireland Police Authority, which oversees the RUC. Another meeting is planned for next week.
Mr Patten said the Belfast Agreement represented a "wonderful opportunity" for Northern Ireland and he wanted that prom ise to be fulfilled. "We want Northern Ireland to be peaceful and prosperous and it is clear that future policing arrangements will be a central issue in this."
Over the next year, the commission planned to take evidence in public. It aimed to meet in the community as much as possible, and to get out of Belfast frequently. Mr Patten said he wanted a police force which had the "broadest possible" acceptance in the community. He said the commission's remit, as set out in the agreement, required it to look at the operation of the Garda, but it would also be looking at practice in other police forces. "There are a lot of issues which are common to police forces everywhere."
The commission was set up to examine the composition, recruitment, training culture, ethos and symbols of the RUC in an effort to make the force acceptable to both sides of the community. Sinn Fein continues to call for its disbandment, but the British Prime Minister, Mr Tony Blair, says this will not happen. Mr Patten, a former Conservative junior minister in the North, yesterday refused to be drawn on the matter.
Asked about the leak of confidential Northern Ireland Office memos which revealed friction between the British and Irish governments over the composition of the commission, he said the question of appointments was one for ministers, though he had been consulted on the matter.
"I am absolutely satisfied that the commission has the experience, integrity and commitment to produce as good a report as is possible," he said. The commission members include two members with policing experience, one each representing both sides of the community, two international academics and a leading Northern business figure.
The other members are: Sir John Smith, former deputy commissioner of the London Metropolitan police; Ms Kathleen O'Toole, secretary for public saf ety in Massachusetts; Mr Peter Smith QC, a leading Northern lawyer; Senator Maurice Hayes, a former Northern civil servant; Prof Clifford Shearing, director of the Centre of Criminology at the University of Toronto; Dr Gerald Lynch, president of the John Jay College, New York, and Ms Lucy Woods, chief executive of British Telecom in the North.
