An off-duty senior detective in Northern Ireland’s police service was ambushed last night by masked gunmen as he helped at a football coaching event in Omagh, Country Tyrone. Two assailants fired at least four bullets into Detective Chief Inspector John Caldwell, shooting him on the ground as his terrified son looked on. He remains critically ill in hospital. PSNI detectives investigating his attempted murder are pursuing dissident republican terrorists in the ‘New IRA’ as a strong line of inquiry. Three men have been arrested.

Twenty five years ago, this sort of casual barbarity gained not much more than a sidebar in a local newspaper. The frequency of execution-style attacks by the IRA on defenceless police officers off duty – in shops, restaurants, farms, on the steps of churches – was justified by their political representatives as a ‘war’ and was sadly too commonplace. So the universal condemnation from all political parties in the province to last night’s appalling attack is welcome progress.

Caldwell lies in hospital grievously wounded

Dissident republicans form a rag-bag and perma-splintering coalition of former IRA combatants and new recruits; they are opposed to even the semi-skimmed peace that has endured in Northern Ireland since 1998. The poor town of Omagh, which I visited on many childhood shopping trips, has for too long been the canvas for their nihilistic violence. In 1998, irredentist maniacs slaughtered 29 people in a bomb attack on the town. No warning was given in one of the most savage civilian  attacks in post-war Europe.

Thirteen years on, another attack took place in the town. PC Ronan Kerr was killed by dissident republicans who planted a bomb under his car in 2011. He was the last PSNI officer to be murdered. A Roman Catholic recruit, Kerr symbolised the new, inclusive police service in Northern Ireland. His killers have never been brought to justice, but there is little doubt his religion was why he was targeted.

In a chilling twist of fate, it was DCI Caldwell who issued an appeal on the 10th anniversary of his murder saying of PC Kerr:

‘His job was to protect the community. Despicably, people living in his own community planned and plotted to kill him simply because he was a police officer bravely going out every day to protect people and make communities safer places to live and work.‘

Now, Caldwell lies in hospital grievously wounded, probably at the hands of the same despicable forces. The national and international politicians hoping to come to Northern Ireland this April to celebrate 25 years of the Good Friday Agreement should understand that the peace has held in no small way due to the sacrifice of men and women of the PSNI. When they wear a uniform, they make themselves targets

Police officers in Northern Ireland are still unique in these islands in that they face a deadly threat on and off duty from a small but lethal collection of terrorists. The service faces a budgetary deficit that it’s Chief Constable, Simon Byrne, admits will result in the lowest number of officers in its history next year. Assault rates against officers have increased 76 per cent since 2018, with calls for officers to be equipped with tasers mired in politicised obstruction. Resignations of new recruits has doubled. No wonder when starting salaries for what can be one of the most dangerous policing jobs in Europe lag behind their comparators over the Irish Sea. Add in the threat of being targeted for murder off duty – a fear that heavily constrains normal social interactions – and these things amount to a hefty push factor away from enlisting in an essential public service.

While esoteric discussions about the NI Protocol continue, the attack on Caldwell is the visceral reality of policing a very imperfect peace. The Prime Minister is right to describe the events of last night as ‘appalling’ but words won’t do. Rishi Sunak needs to be on the phone to Simon Byrne to offer every assistance of the UK Government in supporting the PSNI as it reels from these multiple assaults.

Dissident Republicans and organised criminals – often two sides of the same coin – desperately need terrorised communities. They need de-legitimised policing. If that means brave young men and women deterred from joining or staying in Northern Ireland’s police service, we are all in serious trouble.