THE POLICE Service of Northern Ireland has sent a file to the Public Prosecution Service regarding comments on homosexuality made by Democratic Unionist Party MP and Assembly member Iris Robinson.
The comments were made last June on a live radio broadcast on Radio Ulster. She described homosexuality as an “abomination” and said that homosexuals could become heterosexual through psychiatric treatment.
She condemned homophobic violence but defended her comments as being in line with her Christian beliefs.
Ms Robinson courted further controversy a few days later when she said in a House of Commons debate on the treatment of sex offenders: “There can be no viler act, apart from homosexuality and sodomy, than sexually abusing innocent children.”
She questioned Hansard, the parliamentary record, but compilers said she was quoted accurately.
Ms Robinson, who chairs the Stormont health committee, has been supported by her husband, First Minister Peter Robinson. “It wasn’t Iris Robinson who determined that homosexuality was an abomination, it was the Almighty,” he said.
It is understood that the PSNI serious crime branch has been investigating Ms Robinson’s comments after receiving complaints from members of the public, claiming they constituted incitement to hatred. A PSNI spokesman confirmed yesterday that it was seeking the advice of the Public Prosecution Service before deciding on its next step.
A prosecution may be launched if it is decided that Ms Robinson’s comments constitute a breach of the Public Order (NI) Order 1997, which criminalises statements likely to foment hatred.
PSNI Gay Independent Advisory Group Chairman Colin Flinn welcomed the PSNI’s move and said “all incidents of hate crime have a damaging effect on Northern Irish society”.