Commenting on an article in this morning’s Belfast Telegraph TUV leader and North Antrim MLA Jim Allister said:

“It is an absolute scandal that Deirdre Hargey who was present in Magennis’s bar the night Robert McCartney was murdered has never spoken to the PSNI about the incident. Her position today as a Sinn Fein councillor in Belfast starkly illustrates the fact that so-called mainstream Republicans continue to protect those who were involved in this dreadful murder.

“It must be particularly galling for the McCartney family to see Hargey hold a position on Belfast Policing Partnership and chair the South Belfast subgroup. It takes the idea of putting the fox in charge of the chicken coop to an outrageous new level.

“The fact that Catherine was prompted to raise the issue of the councillor’s failure to help the police following Hargey’s appearance alongside Martin McGuinness and Peter Robinson at an event in Belfast should prompt Unionists to recognise that Sinn Fein/IRA’s supposed support for the rule of law for the sham it is.

“How can Mr Robinson seek to maintain such a fiction while standing alongside someone who has so manifestly failed in their duty to assist the police in a murder investigation?”