Ulster Unionist Justice spokesperson Tom Elliott MLA has expressed his shock at the announcement that a former IRA spy has been appointed as vice-Principal of a Londonderry secondary school.
Mr Elliott said:
“The news that convicted IRA terrorist Rosa McLaughlin has been appointed vice Principal of St Mary’s College in Londonderry will come as a shock to many people.
In 1998 as a young teacher, she was convicted of targeting specific individuals and also targeted Bangor Police Station, making sketches of it including the height of the perimeter fence and the site of security gates and cameras. Clearly the IRA were planning an attack similar to that which they unleashed on Newry Police Station in February 1985 in which they murdered nine officers and injured 37 other people. In acquiring the information about Bangor Police Station, McLaughlin would have been in no doubt she was assisting the IRA to plan the mass murder of Police Officers.
I am at a loss to understand how anyone could employ McLaughlin as a teacher. I wonder just how many other former terrorists or teachers with criminal convictions are working in classrooms in Northern Ireland? The fact that her past crimes were not disclosed to parents at St Mary’s is also deeply worrying, particularly if any of those parents happen to be serving officers in the PSNI.
St Mary’s and indeed the Catholic Council for Maintained Schools have some very serious questions to answer as to how this person was ever deemed fit to teach children and young people.”