As Orde travels to US, PSNI will act against thugs

The internet should make a nonsense of attempts by the yesterday's men in the DUP (and their allies) to introduce a new broadcasting ban at Stormont.

With cameras on mobile phones and digi cameras which also take video, one presumes such a ban would be impossible to patrol — though the thought police in the DUP will surely do their level censorious best.

Meanwhile, I'm happy to relate that the ban on filming the reality of life here doesn't extend to Stoneyford where a prominent loyalist is running amok — under the very nose of the PSNI (who patently don't think fleeing Fenians is any big deal: another family is to leave the area today in the face of loyalist intimidation and threats). There were lots of threats to "Fenian bastards" during the assault. The PSNI, amazingly since this is the singular most explosive sectarian flashpoint in the North, were nowhere to be seen.

However, the loyalists may have made their biggest mistake yet. On Wednesday they attacked a BBC Spotlight team filming for a programme to go out on 18 March. Perhaps now the PSNI will act decisively to bring this gang and its sinister leader, who has enjoyed a charmed existence in his 20-year paramilitary career, to book. As I write, one arrest has been made.

As Hugh Orde arrives in America, it's appropriate that the Irish Echo has editorialised on Stoneyford. It's a placename the Chief Constable (pictured) should hear many times before he leaves the US and should mean previous risible PSNI claims that they don't have enough evidence to prosecute these thugs are ditched and charges laid swiftly against the perpetrators.