McCrea warned of RIRA threat
Northern Ireland MP William McCrea has been warned of a death threat from the Real IRA, it was revealed today.
Dissidents shot dead two soldiers in his south Antrim constituency in March. Mr McCrea said the gunmen were trying to ruin progress made in Northern Ireland.
“We need to crush these people or they will consign Northern Ireland to another long period of intimidation and threat and most people want to leave that behind,” he said.
“In my constituency we saw the reality of what blood-thirsty terrorists can do when they murdered those two soldiers and attempted to murder another two boys (pizza delivery men at the Massereene army barracks).”
Police passed on the message to his wife at home on Tuesday and he received it from her on Thursday as he had been in Westminster. He said he would be foolish not to take the danger seriously but attacked the police for bringing the message to his door without an envelope so his wife could see it and failing to contact him directly.
“I think it is totally wrong, it was treating a sensitive message like that in a very careless way,” he added. “You try to guard your family from some of these things, they worry about you and carry it in their hearts all the time.”
Sappers Mark Quinsey (23) from Birmingham and Patrick Azimkar (21) from London, were gunned down by the Real IRA as they accepted a pizza delivery at the gates of Massereene Barracks, Antrim in March. Police constable Stephen Carroll (48) was killed by the Continuity IRA in Craigavon, Co Armagh, two days later.
Mr McCrea claimed the handling of his case called into question the police approach to the dissident terrorist threat at the time when the threat was high.
“We are facing a chief constable (Sir Hugh Orde) leaving, he is wishing to abolish the full-time reserve just to get numbers down and recommending the withdrawal of personal protection weapons from ex-members of the security services when there is a dissident security threat,” he added.
“The whole thing in the round smacks to me of not treating this in the serious manner they should.”
A Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) spokeswoman said they do not discuss the security of individuals.
“However, if we receive information that an individual may need to review their security, we will take steps to inform them immediately. We never ignore anything which may put an individual’s life at risk,” she said.
