High profile former police officer Jim Gamble says that Chief Constable Simon Byrne should have shown sacrificial leadership to allow PSNI to rehabilitate

Jim Gamble was a head of department within the RUC’s Special Branch and as a child safety expert he played a central role in the investigation into the disappearance of Madeleine McCann.

He does not think Mr Byrne can survive the latest crisis in the PSNI for which Mr Gamble said the Policing Board must also take responsibility.

Talking on this morning’s Nolan Show on BBC Radio Ulster, he said: “I think there comes a time and place where you need sacrificial leadership and that's where the person in charge, reflecting on what has happened and what is happening to the organisation makes a decision that regardless of their own personal position that they need to go for the greater good. Because the greater good is how we rehabilitate, how we support, how we encourage and remotivate the Police Service of Northern Ireland so they can deliver the service to our communities that we desperately need.”

He remarked that he hasn’t heard a single voice in support of the Chief Constable: “There is no one coming out unequivocally saying, ‘having worked with Simon for the last number of years we have absolute confidence in his ability to lead us and to take us forward and to address the issues that have been exposed about the schizms in the senior leadership team’.

"Therein lies the truth of it all, we are in a crisis, that crisis lies at the feet of a number of people and of course the Policing Board for Northern Ireland. This Policing Board is a shadow of the board that was formed in the immediate aftermath of the peace process that helped to reshape policing.

"There needs to be a fundamental review of the Policing Board for Northern Ireland.”

Mr Gamble said: "I believe the time has come for the Chief Constable to do the right thing so that the police service can heal. I think there needs to be an investigation with regards to the relationship between the chief, the deputy and others because having read the court papers it appears to me that at the very critical moment when the Ormeau Road incident took place (Deputy Chief Constable) Mark Hamilton was in the right place."

He said the court papers showed that Deputy Chief Constable had taken a decision that the officers should not be disciplined, “but at some point during that process he has been influenced or persuaded to change his mind”.

"How exactly did that take place?” he asked.

The entry to DCC Hamilton’s day book recorded that: "The [Chief Constable] received information from Sinn Fein that unless officers were suspended, they would remove support for policing.”

The PSNI was asked by the News Letter if Simon Byrne stood over the day book entry from his Deputy Chief Constable that a threat was issued by Sinn Fein to himself.

A spokesperson said: “As the question of an appeal is live, further public commentary around the matter is not appropriate at this stage.”