Arrest enlivens count centre
Fermanagh South Tyrone was tonight shaping up to be a dull election story - until one of the candidates got arrested in connection with an attempted murder.
Independent Republican Gerry McGeough’s high profile anti-policing campaign ended bizarrely when he was taken into custody over a gun attack on a part-time Ulster Defence Regiment officer in 1981.
Having made little impact on the polls the 46-year-old former IRA prisoner - and critic of Sinn Féin – slipped quietly out of the Omagh Leisure Centre largely unnoticed by the press.
It was only when word trickled through that he had been arrested in a nearby car-park that the news-starved media presence erupted into a frenzy looking for McGeough.
The DUP’s Arlene Foster – who topped the poll in the constituency – seized on the incident to demand Sinn Féin’s response, looking for a clue as to how far they’ve moved towards policing.
“What have they got to say about that? What’s their attitude to that?” she asked.
This was a simple matter of law and order for the qualified lawyer who saw a massive increase in her vote this time round after defecting to the DUP from the UUP.
No sooner had she ordered a response from those seeking to do a deal with her party in a power sharing executive than Michelle Gildernew walked in with an entourage.
The Sinn Féin MP – also elected to Fermanagh South Tyrone on the first count - brought along Brenda McAnespie whose husband had also been arrested apparently as part of the same investigation.
“This is one of the worst examples of political policing and one of the reasons we have to get rid of the people that are involved in creating this kind of mayhem on the day of an election,” said Ms Gildernew.
The Sinn Féin councillor for Monaghan, Ms McAnespie, claimed her sister-in-law and niece were abused by police officers when her husband Vincent – also a party member – was arrested in Aughnacloy.
As a further count was announced and the plasma screens set up in the canteen, most people had briefly forgotten there was an election on.
