Members of the Patten Committee visited Portadown last night and held two separate meetings to hear the views of local nationalist and loyalist communities on the future of policing.
More than 200 people were present in Ashgrove Community Centre, on the nationalist Garvaghy Road, as Mr Chris Patten and two other members of the commission heard submissions outlining the grievances of local residents.
Ms Diane Hamill, whose brother, Robert, was kicked to death in Portadown town centre by loyalists in 1996, told the commission that since her brother's death, both she and her family had been subjected to constant harassment by the local RUC.
Ms Hamill requested a private meeting with Mr Patten and members of the Police Commission to discuss her brother's murder in detail. Mr Patten agreed to meet the Hamill family.
Cllr Breandan Mac Cionnaith, spokesman of the Garvaghy Road residents, claimed that since 1995 the RUC had not acted impartially. He said that in general nationalists in Portadown had no confidence in the RUC. He claimed there had been numerous incidents of "collusion between the RUC and loyalist death squads". Later, at Craigavon civic centre, Mr Patten and his colleagues faced an audience made up mainly of unionists from Portadown and Lurgan. The majority of speakers were supportive of the RUC, while a number claimed the commission was paying too much attention to the "excessive complaints of the nationalist community". Mr Patten rejected this.
In general, the Craigavon audience said the changes proposed by the SDLP and Sinn Fein would further exacerbate divisions in Northern Ireland. Earlier, RUC widows called on Mr Patten to realise what members of the force and their families had suffered.
In Cookstown, Co Tyrone, yesterday afternoon there was barely a raised voice at the public hearing of the commission. The only occasion on which there were shouts from a section of the 200-plus gathering was when a Sinn Fein speaker accused the RUC of adopting a "shoot-to-kill" policy - which was "rubbish" according to some unionists.
The party's local councillor, Mr John McNamee, claimed that members of the force had frequently fired plastic bullets at young nationalists leaving the Glenavon Hotel.
Among those making presentations during the two-hour sitting were three members of the North's new Assembly - Mr William Armstrong (UUP), Mr Denis Haughey (SDLP) and Mr Francie Molloy (Sinn Fein).
Calling for a new police force which would command the respect of all sections of society, Mr Haughey said RUC officers had a unionist perspective. He emphasised that the IRA acted for no one but themselves. Cllr William Larmour (UUP) said it was an affront to natural justice for anyone to sit in judgment on the RUC - which had suffered death and injury for the past 30 years without complaint.
The biggest applause went to a member of the audience, Mr Desmond Gourley, who said: "What I want to be able to call it after this review is `my police force' and for each one of us - from both sides of the community - to be proud of it."