A police officer has been disciplined after failing to deal properly with a report that paramilitaries were planning to shoot a man (Man A).

The officer (Officer 1) received an anonymous phone call at around 5am on a Saturday, stating that Man A would be shot later that day.

Officer 1 recorded details from the call onto the appropriate police intelligence form and forwarded it electronically to the relevant intelligence department. He did not create an entry on the police command and control system, nor notify a supervisor about the call. The officer finished duty at 7am.

At about teatime that night, Man A was abducted from his house by masked men and shot once in the leg. He was taken to hospital and treated for his injuries, which were non-life-threatening.

It later transpired that the intelligence report submitted by Officer 1 was not accessed by the intelligence department until the following Monday, as the department had been unmanned over the weekend.

This meant that the police intelligence unit had been unable to issue a warning to Man A or take any other preventative measures before the attack.

A Police Ombudsman investigation concluded that as well as submitting the intelligence form, Officer 1 should also have informed his supervisor about the call. The supervisor would then have been required to advise the on-call intelligence officer, who would then have decided upon appropriate further police action.

N.B. Although this report has been logged under 1 January 2011, the incident took place on another date in early 2011, which we are not divulging for security reasons.