The Police Ombudsman has found that police were justified in firing 82 CS irritant canisters and six stun grenades as they stormed a meeting of Loyalist paramilitaries in the  Alexander Bar in north Belfast in March 2006.

Officers also used eight specialist shotgun rounds to break hinges and locks on secure doors as they gained entry to the bar’s upper floor, where a meeting involving 17 people, among them prominent Loyalist paramilitary figures, was taking place.

Five people were subsequently convicted of membership of a proscribed organisation.

No injuries were sustained by police or members of the public.

The operation took place on the evening of Thursday March 2, 2006, after police received information that a large number of Loyalist paramilitaries, some of whom would be armed, were to meet at the York Road bar.

No firearms were found, but documents and paraphernalia associated with paramilitaries, including uniforms and balaclavas, were recovered at the bar.

The use of firearms was reported by police to the Police Ombudsman’s Office shortly after the bar had been secured.

Investigators were deployed to the scene, and during the investigation accounts were obtained from the officers involved about their roles and responsibilities during the operation.

Police documents outlining the information which had prompted the operation, as well as its objectives, methodology and command structure, were examined.

This showed that police had conducted “a structured and detailed operational planning process” which included consideration of the necessity and proportionality for using the munitions deployed during the operation.

Officers had also considered tactical advice about the amount of CS irritant required to quickly saturate an area of the size of the meeting room to facilitate a “dynamic entry.”

In total, six officers were deployed with RIP rounds, which contain CS irritant fired from shotgun cartridges.  Having reviewed the operation, the PSNI has since indicated that it is considering whether alternative methods would allow for larger amounts of CS irritant to be quickly deployed. 

Training records showed that all officers who had used firearms had been appropriately trained and accredited.

Only the 17 people who were in the upstairs meeting room were arrested. Bar staff and patrons in the bar downstairs were permitted to leave the premises after their identities had been recorded.

Two subsequently complained to the Police Ombudsman’s Office about alleged threatening behaviour by police, but their complaints were closed after they failed to co-operate with subsequent enquiries.

Police Ombudsman Dr Michael Maguire found that that “the police operation was planned, managed and executed effectively with due regard for Association of Chief Police Officers guidance, within the law and spirit of the PSNI Code of Ethics.”

“The tactics employed were necessary, justified and proportionate,” he said.