Sir, - One Saturday afternoon a couple of weeks ago I was stopped by a joint RIR and RUC patrol in Lurgan, Co Armagh. A soldier crouched on the pavement was pointing his gun at me and I felt extremely uncomfortable and then angry about what was happening to me. I phoned the RUC barracks to complain.
The RUC man who addressed me left me totally dumbfounded by his response to my complaint, for rather than listening courteously to me and then noting what I had to say, he gave me a lecture about the difficult and dangerous job the RUC was doing. I then asked if the peace process did not mean that joint military and RUC patrols were unnecessary and a hindrance to the normalisation of life on the streets. The answer I received was: "There is no peace process in this area!"
The RUC is supposed to be the servant of the state and members are paid to uphold the law and the government. They don't have the right to establish policy; yet here was a police officer making a policy assessment to a total stranger that was clearly at variance with established government thinking. I decided there was no point in going further with it when nationalist friends told me of their own experiences of complaints against the police and RIR but many times since I have been very angry when I've thought about it.
Because I am a Protestant, RUC men have let their guard down in front of me on various occasions over the years when I have encountered them on visits to relations and friends in Northern Ireland. Consistently, I have heard nothing but hatred expressed by them against nationalists and Roman Catholics and no one will convince me the RUC is an impartial police service that can be trusted to treat both sections of the community equally. It is a force which is discredited and must be disbanded.
Given the concerns of the Nelson family, I would have thought that the British government might agree to an independent investigation of Rosemary's murder. - Yours, etc., Rev David Frazer,
Sallins, Co Kildare.