The ex-officer, known publicly as ‘Sean’, admitted his claims were false. He has apologised to colleagues, and said being unwell has left him vulnerable.<\/p>\n
His original allegations were reported by the Belfast Telegraph in March.<\/p>\n
In a statement to the News Letter today, \u2018Sean\u2019 said: \u201cI am deeply sorry to everyone I have hurt by making these allegations, all of which were untrue and did not in fact occur.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis statement is not an excuse for why I made these allegations up, but an explanation and a heartfelt apology. I cannot turn the clock back, I wish I could, but I will try and make right what I did wrong.\u201d<\/p>\n
He added: \u201cI wish to apologise to all the men and women of the PSNI, serving and retired, who have been hurt by my actions. I am also truly sorry that I misled the Belfast Telegraph and by extension the public.\u201d<\/p>\n
Chief Constable Jon Boutcher said he was grateful to \u2018Sean\u2019 for setting the record straight.<\/p>\n
He said the PSNI will provide the former officer with whatever welfare support he requires.<\/p>\n
Mr Boutcher said: \u201cI want to acknowledge Sean\u2019s courageous decision to issue this statement and I urge everyone to respect Sean\u2019s plea for privacy.<\/p>\n
\u201cI was aware that Sean may provide a retraction but have deliberately waited for him to take this step before commenting.<\/p>\n
\u201cI have said publicly and very clearly to the Policing Board and reiterate again now, there was no sectarianism in this case.<\/p>\n
\u201cI am grateful to Sean for setting the record straight and for the dignity and professionalism displayed by his serving and retired colleagues during this challenging time. They are a credit to policing.<\/p>\n
\u201cAfter my meeting with Sean I described him as a decent man and his statement of retraction is nothing short of what I expected. To their huge credit the very colleagues Sean criticised also described him to me as a good and decent man.<\/p>\n
\u201cThose colleagues (retired and serving) behaved impeccably through this period and have demonstrated immense humility and generosity towards Sean.<\/p>\n
“As I have already stated publicly, they have my full support.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe PSNI will provide Sean with whatever welfare support he requires. He was clearly vulnerable and this was evident to me when I met him.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"The ex-officer, known publicly as ‘Sean’, admitted his claims were false. He has apologised to colleagues, and said…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":129517,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[5011],"tags":[1144,1610,16,15],"class_list":{"0":"post-129516","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-northern-ireland","8":"tag-northern-ireland","9":"tag-police-service-of-northern-ireland","10":"tag-uk","11":"tag-united-kingdom"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/114566073131994263","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129516","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=129516"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/129516\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/129517"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=129516"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=129516"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=129516"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}