The chairman of Northern Ireland's Independent Commission on Policing, Mr Chris Patten, has denounced as fabrications a series of alleged leaks of the commission's conclusions.
Mr Patten was speaking yesterday to journalists in Brussels, where he was attending hearings on his confirmation as EU Commissioner for External Relations. He also applauded the Northern Secretary, Dr Mo Mowlam's comments denying that there would be any proposed role for paramilitaries in a reformed police. He said he was 100 per cent confident that there had been no leaks from the commission. "There have been a number of examples of speculative guesswork. There have been a number of straightforward fabrications."
"There was, for example, a report in the Irish edition of the Sunday Times last week which suggested we were going to Balkanise the police service in Northern Ireland, dividing it up into 26 and that we had agreed to do that in order to avoid a minority report.
"There have been other statements like that, and there has been a whole debate about whether we are going to Balkanise the police service. That is a straightforward fabrication.
" And why is it happening? I think there's an effort to distract attention from the real substance of our report next week and to muddy the water before we report.
"I'm not going to say anything more about what's in our report. It will be published next Thursday and will, I suspect, be the focus for a very great deal of interest and a great deal of, I hope, rational discussion and debate.
"The future of policing in Northern Ireland is an essential component in the re-establishing of fully democratic institutions and society in Northern Ireland and I very much hope that people will react to our report in that way."
Last night the Irish news editor of the Sunday Times, Mr John Burns, denied Mr Patten's accusations. He said that no predictions concerning the Balkanisation of the North's police service or its division into 26 local council areas were made by the Sunday Times. He called on Mr Patten to withdraw his comments.
