Shock over clip of Derry PSNI officers 'leaving incapacitated woman in bus lane'
A video that appears to show PSNI officers leaving an incapacitated woman by the side of the road is to be referred to the Police Ombudsman in the North.
The clip, understood to have been shot in Derry on St. Patrick's Day, appears to show police moving the woman from the middle of the road to a bus lane in the John's Street area of the city, before walking away.
The man who filmed the incident claimed the woman had been assaulted before the police arrived, and may have been suffering from a head injury.
"She was probably still in concussion," Sean McCallion told The Guardian.
"Somebody helped straight after I stopped the video. I was shocked when I saw the police drive away. She could have been run over or anything."
A spokesperson for the PSNI says any behaviour that discredits the service will be investigated.
A spokesman for the Northern Ireland Policing Board said:“Whilst the circumstances surrounding this incident are not yet clear, video footage of the police response raises questions of the most serious nature.
“The Board and the public rightly expect the highest professional standards of all of our police officers and anything that falls short of that is simply unacceptable," the spokesman told The Derry Journal.
“The Board has been informed by the PSNI that the matter has been referred to the Police Ombudsman for independent investigation.”
Sinn Féin councillor Elisha McCallion said she is shocked by the footage.
"There's a clear failure in duty of care as to how the police responded to this particular incident," she said.
"A young lady who's clearly incapacitated, clearly quite vulnerable - I'm absolutely disgusted about what I've seen in relation to the police response," she added.
