The PSNI's beleaguered chief constable, Simon Byrne, will today find himself once again in front of an emergency meeting of the Policing Board.
These encounters are becoming regrettably regular. However, the pressure on Mr Byrne has never been as intense; this time the DUP is calling for his resignation and it is clear that rank-and-file officers are also disillusioned with how the PSNI is led.
The latest crisis, which comes in the wake of the data breach debacles, centres on a damning High Court ruling which has further damaged political and public confidence in policing.
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Mr Justice Scoffield found that not only were two junior police officers unlawfully disciplined, but that Mr Byrne also seems to have firmly believed that unless the officers were sanctioned, Sinn Féin would withdraw its support for the PSNI.
The officers, both probationers, had been involved in the arrest of Mark Sykes, a survivor of the 1992 Sean Graham bookmakers massacre on Belfast's Ormeau Road, at a memorial event to mark the anniversary of the tragedy in February 2021.
The episode, which took place against the backdrop of Covid restrictions, sparked immediate controversy. Just a week earlier the PSNI drew criticism for not intervening in a UVF show of strength in the Pitt Park area of east Belfast. The contrast with the Ormeau Road commemoration could not have been starker; it was a dignified, socially distanced event at which flowers were laid in memory of five people killed in a UDA attack long linked with RUC collusion with loyalist paramilitaries.
Sinn Féin Policing Board member Gerry Kelly did telephone deputy chief constable Mark Hamilton to raise concerns about what had happened on the Ormeau Road; Mr Kelly has strenuously denied he made any suggestion that Sinn Féin would "withdraw support for the rule of law or policing".
Nonetheless, Mr Byrne seems to have been convinced otherwise, even believing it could lead to the collapse of the Stormont executive.
The overall picture is of decision-making in disarray, of junior officers being scapegoated, disciplinary processes not followed and the PSNI's political antennae not being in tune with reality.
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It is worrying that at no point do any senior figures – including the Policing Board's then-chief executive and then-chair – seem to have counselled Mr Byrne on a more proportionate or measured course of action.
That points to wider failings not only in the PSNI but in its oversight by the Policing Board, whose members – including those now calling for his sacking – agreed to extend Mr Byrne's contract earlier this year.
The problems in policing may include the Chief Constable, but they do not stop there.
