Neil Johnston
Fri, 11 August 2023
Police stock
More than 1,000 police officers and staff members in Northern Ireland have been referred to an emergency threat assessment group set up to provide security advice in the wake of the biggest security breach in the province’s history.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland said there have been 1,200 staff referrals to the service, which is providing support to people whose circumstances may put them or their families at risk of harm.
Northern Irish policing is facing an existential crisis as officers will be forced to flee in the wake of the breach, a senior official warned on Friday.
Mike Nesbitt, who sits on the policing board which quizzed Northern Ireland’s most senior officers for four hours on Thursday, said he feared the leak could leave the region with too few staff to police properly.
The force is reeling after details of 10,000 officers and staff were mistakenly published online. Simon Byrne, the embattled chief constable, has admitted dissident republicans have claimed to have obtained some of the data.
The spreadsheet included officers based at MI5 and hundreds working in intelligence, the riot squad and involved in close protection or bodyguard duties for senior politicians or judges.
Mr Nesbitt, who is also an Ulster Unionist Party member of the Northern Irish Assembly, said that even before the leak the force struggled to hold onto officers.
‘Attrition rate is very high’
“The attrition rate in terms of particularly probationary officers is very high. I know one who was in a class of 56 and before the data breach ten had already left,” he said.
“They are losing a good 300 per annum. This breach will just accelerate all that, those leaving or looking to leave, Police Scotland being a favourite for a lot with the cultural links.”
He said the issue of officers leaving was discussed at the police board meeting on Thursday and there was agreement the leak would have “consequences”.
“In the four hours with the chief and his team we did talk about attrition rates, we did talk about morale is going to be worse because of this,” he said. “It was everybody nodding and saying yes, these will be the consequences of this catastrophic error.”
He added that officers working with partner organisations such as MI5 and the National Crime Agency would likely be re-allocated but for some officers most exposed the “place is too small” to stay in the force safely.
“There is probably a number of police officers of which below you can’t keep Northern Ireland safe...I think this pushes us closer to that point,” he added.
One officer told BBC News NI on Friday they had made the “devastating” decision to leave Northern Ireland over the breach which they described as “the straw broke the camel’s back”.
Mr Nesbitt added that he feared an attack was imminent and expected intelligence to “dry up” after to the leak as informants would not trust the force with their data.
He spoke as Deirdre Toner, the chair of the policing board, refused to back Mr Byrne over his handling of the breach.
She failed three times to show confidence in the chief constable as she was asked about the breach on Radio 4’s Today programme.
The Catholic Police Guild, which represents a significant number of Catholic members of the PSNI, has called for a full response from senior ranks.
Some police staff have also been angered that they were not told about the leak.
‘We heard about it on the news’
One staff member told the Belfast Telegraph: “We didn’t get any communication from work at all; we were arriving in the next day, everyone having heard it on the news the night before.”
They also claimed that management had threatened to “weed out” staff who had passed on the information that was shared online.
“It’s a horrible phrase,” they said. “Now a questionnaire has come out asking if we were on the site, if we viewed it, if we shared it, and people are worried about being hauled over the coals of Professional Standards.
“Everyone I’ve spoken to has seen the document, but nobody wants to say that they have because they are terrified of the ramifications.
“Senior officers are saying it’s just our names and initials, downplaying how people feel. They are trying to make [staff] feel like they are overreacting — and they really are not.”
As of Friday, a group set up for officers and staff worried about risk had more than 900 referrals.
Cumbria Police became the second force to admit a data breach after the names and salaries of all its staff were accidentally published online. It said that on March 6 it found out information about pay and allowances had been uploaded on its website following a “human error”.
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