Fraud squad probe PSNI contract
An investigation was tonight under way into alleged contract corruption within Northern Ireland’s Police Service.
The probe was announced after a Belfast firm was last week awarded £400,000 damages for a cancelled deal to supply vehicle armour-plating to the force.
NI Sheet Metal Works had been awarded a three-year contract in 2001, only for the work to be later handed to another firm charging hundreds of thousands of pounds extra.
Managing director Jim Kirkpatrick took action for breach of contract after being asked to supply further steel samples which, it was alleged, did not come up to standard.
After a High Court Judge in Belfast called for a criminal probe into the affair, the PSNI tonight confirmed an investigation was under way.
A police spokeswoman said: “The PSNI Fraud Squad has initiated a criminal investigation following comments by a judge in the NI Sheet Metal Works case.
“This investigation will be supervised by the Assistant Chief Constable Crime Operations (Sam Kinkaid) who will be advised by an external independent expert.
“A separate independent review of the processes involved in this case will still be carried out”.
Last week Mr Kirkpatrick insisted those within the Police Service of Northern Ireland allegedly responsible should be worried.
He said: “I would say there are a lot of people who are losing sleep at the moment, as I have had to suffer in the last few years.
“There are people now suffering sleepless nights.
“This has been a hard five years for me, because we have had to watch a situation developing where we had no redress other than the courts.”
The company boss revealed that more than £300,000 had been invested to make sure the quality of its cutting was up to standard for the contract.
A prototype armour plated vehicle was also built for use worldwide, especially in Iraq.
But a reference requested from the PSNI so the design would be accepted by the United Nations was denied, he claimed.
DUP MP Sammy Wilson, chairman of the Northern Ireland Policing Board’s finance committee, called for an outside force to investigate the case.
