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Ex-prisoners can 'join police' Ex-prisoners can 'join police'
(about 1 hour later)
Prisoners released under the Good Friday Agreement could be considered for membership of the police service, the DUP has said. Prisoners freed under the Good Friday Agreement may be able to join the police service, the DUP has said.
However, MP Gregory Campbell said it could only happen "provided they demonstrate they have repented".However, MP Gregory Campbell said it could only happen "provided they demonstrate they have repented".
He was asked on BBC Radio Ulster's Nolan Show if his party's decision to allow former paramilitaries to join the DUP should be extended to the police.He was asked on BBC Radio Ulster's Nolan Show if his party's decision to allow former paramilitaries to join the DUP should be extended to the police.
He said the prisoners would have to show they did not advocate criminality. DUP member and former prisoner Gary Blair has disagreed, saying a "conviction should rule everyone out".
Mr Campbell said the prisoners would have to show they did not advocate criminality.
'Repentant'
If they did, he said, they could be considered for membership of the Police Service of Northern Ireland.If they did, he said, they could be considered for membership of the Police Service of Northern Ireland.
"They have to demonstrate that they are repentant and they have to show that they do not advocate that sort of activities," he said."They have to demonstrate that they are repentant and they have to show that they do not advocate that sort of activities," he said.
"If so, they could then be considered, only if they demonstrate that, if they don't, they should not.""If so, they could then be considered, only if they demonstrate that, if they don't, they should not."
Gary Blair, a spokesman for the DUP's Ballymoney branch, said former prisoners should not be permitted to join the police service.
"A conviction is a conviction and it should rule everyone out. I would never put myself forward to join the PSNI," he said.
'Credible officers'
"If the police want to be a credible police force, then I think they need to have credible officers and obviously people who broke the law repeatedly don't have that credibility and I include myself in that."
Sinn Fein assembly member Philip McGuigan said the DUP had "tried to create the myth that they had no relationship whatever with unionist paramilitaries".
"Gary Blair, the individual convicted of murdering my party colleague Malachy Carey in Ballymoney in 1992, is currently a leading DUP figure in Ian Paisley's constituency and has indeed led a campaign to see those jailed for the LVF sectarian double murder in Poyntzpass released," he said.
"It has also recently emerged that former DUP councillor and assembly member George Seawright was a member of the UVF."