Burning of posters ‘not always a hate offence’ - PSNI

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The burning of election posters is not deemed to be a hate offence in the eyes of the law, it was claimed at the latest meeting of the NI Policing Board.

PSNI Assistant Chief Constable Stephen Martin explained the way that his officers approach incidents where election posters are on bonfires, to Sinn Féin MLA and Policing Board member Gerry Kelly.

“We do send officers out to record images of the bonfires, where there is evidence of an offence or a complaint is made, we will of course carry out an investigation,” he said.

“The investigation can be a significant investigation such as the very clear racist commentary that was on the Ballycraigy bonfire (in 2014).

“What assisted us there was video evidence from a member of the community that clearly identified the person putting it up.

“I’m giving you a dose of realism here I think, in that as offensive as these posters might be, these are bits of papers in the eyes of the law, it’s the burning of a bit of paper.

“The offences in relation to burning election posters is by and large the theft of a poster and the arson of a poster.

DUP MLA Nelson McCausland at the Policing Board meeting. Credit: Presseye

ACC Martin concluded by saying that ‘many things that people find distasteful and offensive are not breaches of the law.’

ACC Martin also confirmed that on the recent 11th Night, PSNI officers counted over 100 incidents of election posters being on bonfires.

Chief Constable George Hamilton said that if Stormont legislators wanted to see tougher enforcement of the law around this issue, then they needed to make the law more robust and clear to start with.

Responses were given to the HMIC report. Credit: Presseye

The HMIC report into the PSNI's performance was also discussed at Thursday's meeting.

The Chief Constable said that 15 additional detectives would be allocated to investigate child sexual exploitation.

He also claimed that over 3,5000 officers were being given training on how better to deal with domestic abuse reports.

The Chief Constable promised that the criticisms contained in the report had been taken on board and that work was underway to make amendments where needed.