The Police Ombudsman has concluded that a police officer was wrong to fire a warning shot into the ground as two men ran off from the scene of an attempted robbery in east Belfast in March 2011.

The incident happened in the Cregagh Road area on 2 March 2011, after police thwarted an apparent attempt to steal cigarettes being delivered to a local business.

A number of men drove in front of a delivery lorry, forced it to stop, and then tried to rob it.

When police intervened, three men ran off. Two were pursued by an officer, who after shouting several warnings, fired a single shot towards them from his personal protection weapon.

The suspects continued running and made off, but a number of men were arrested later that day in connection with the incident.

The use of the firearm was referred by police to the Police Ombudsman’s Office for independent investigation.

Investigators established that there was no CCTV footage of the incident, but identified a witness who recalled seeing it from his flat. He said he had seen three men running away, two of them being pursued by an officer.

The officer, he said, shouted: “Stop armed undercover police” three times before firing. He recalled that the officer had been about 100 yards from the men at the time. No other police witnesses saw the shot being fired.

Training records showed that the officer had not retrained in the use of his personal protection weapon for 17 months before the incident, although this did not mean it was illegal for him to have carried or used the gun.

When interviewed, the officer said he had fired the shot in order to help effect an arrest.

However, the Police Ombudsman, Dr Michael Maguire, noted police guidelines which stated that warning shots could only be justified “in the most serious and exceptional of circumstances”. He concluded that the use of live fire against apparently unarmed fleeing suspects could not be justified.

He recommended that the officer who fired the shot should be disciplined for failing to following guidelines and for failing to maintain his firearms training.

He also recommended that the officer who had planned and oversaw the police operation should be disciplined for failing to give due regard to the health and safety of the officers involved, in terms of ensuring that they were issued with the right equipment for such an operation.

Both officers have since been disciplined.