Injured officer would not join PSNI again
A FORMER police officer severely injured in a dissident republican bomb attack has said he would not join the PSNI if given the chance again.
Peadar Heffron expressed concern that policing is “broken” in Northern Ireland and said communities on all sides needed to do more to make it work.
He suggested politicians also had to “pull their finger out” as he reflected on the continued reluctance of some young nationalists to join the service amid the security threat posed by dissidents.
Mr Heffron lost a leg when a dissident bomb detonated under his car near
Randalstown, Co
Antrim, in 2010 as he travelled to work. He now uses a wheelchair.
As captain of the PSNI GAA team, the high-profile Catholic officer was targeted by the violent extremists as part of their efforts to intimidate other nationalists from joining up.
Mr Heffron, who is medically retired from the PSNI, was at Stormont yesterday to address an event commemorating the European Remembrance Day for Victims of Terrorism. He relayed his story to an audience inside the Senate Chamber of Parliament Buildings. Speaking to reporters afterwards, Mr Heffron, who now plays wheelchair hurling and basketball, insisted he held no bitterness in relation to what happened to him.
He added: “Me being bitter or being angry or all those sorts of thoughts and emotions, I’m not built that way. That wouldn’t do me any good.
“And it wouldn’t do my family or my wife or any of my friends any good me getting depressed or being bitter or whatever way you want to describe that.
“The people that did this, they have to live with it.
“I obviously have to live with the consequences, but I just get on with it.”
Mr Heffron has previously spoken about how he felt he had to leave his local GAA team in Randalstown when he joined the police due to the hostile reaction from some club members.
The former officer said he would like to some day build bridges with his former club, but he made clear he did not have any “ill feelings” towards the GAA, insisting the association was in his blood.
The people that did this, they have to live with it.
PEADAR HEFFRON