Ulster Unionist Justice Spokesperson Doug Beattie MC MLA, has called for a determined and concerted effort to get dissident republican criminal gangs off the backs of local communities.
Speaking after it was confirmed that dissident republicans had issued threats to probation workers, Doug Beattie MC said:
“It is absolutely disgraceful that dissident republicans should issue threats to probation workers.
“Too much time is spent pandering to these people who are nothing less than fascist criminal gangsters. It is long past time that rather than monitoring these groups, a determined and concerted effort is made to clear them off the streets and into jails with meaningful sentences.
“They are parasites living off communities who are forced to live in fear of these gangsters. This threat is a direct attempt to subvert a key element of what society does in terms of justice and policing arrangements.
“It is long past time that we stopped pandering to these groups. Instead of giving them privileges and status within the prison system via the hugely expensive and disruptive separated regime system, we need to end it and treat them as the organised criminals they are.”