The Police Ombudsman has said a police officer in Londonderry/Derry was right to have used CS Spray on three people during unrest in the city.
The Police Ombudsman has said a police officer in Derry/Londonderry was right to have used CS Spray on three people during unrest in the city.
For a limited period following the introduction of CS Spray, the Police Ombudsman's Office was asked to investigate all uses of the device by officers.
One such incident happened in the early hours of October 16 2004 during unrest in the Sackville Street and Strand Road areas of the city.
The unrest was captured on CCTV footage which was viewed by Police Ombudsman investigators.
During one incident officers came under attack from a small crowd and appeared to have difficulty in controlling them.
One of the officers, Constable A, tried to get into the rear of his vehicle but fell onto the floor. Members of the crowd are seen attacking him.
Later the Constable is seen discharging CS Spray at a man who is holding a bottle in his hand and at another man.
Soon after that the police officer was approached by a woman who had been seen attacking the police earlier in the evening, and who was accompanied by two men, one of whom had been sprayed earlier. The officer sprayed the woman.
The Police Ombudsman's Office did not receive any complaints from members of the public as a result of the incident.
Its investigators tried, however, to trace the people who had been sprayed to get their version of events. Despite contact a local community organisation and the local hospital and making appeals in the media, no one came forward.
The policeman told investigators that he had been terrified by the earlier attack on him and had lost his baton in the police vehicle. He said that when confronted later in the evening he feared that he was to be attacked again.
The Police Ombudsman, Mrs Nuala O'Loan, concluded that in each case the had little option other than to use his spray:
"Having lost his baton, the CS spray was the only level of force open to the officer to prevent further attacks. During all the discharges the officer was more than a metre awry from the subjects he sprayed. There is no evidence to suggest that the conditions were other than described," she said.