A former Sinn Féin employee who resigned as a result of an incident in which a portrait of a DUP lord mayor of Belfast was damaged will not be prosecuted.
The North’s Public Prosecution Service (PPS) announced on Monday it had concluded there was “no reasonable prospect of conviction for any criminal offence on the evidence available.”
The framed portrait of Wallace Brown was damaged in October 2024 after it was taken off the wall at City Hall in Belfast and its glass was smashed.
First Minister Michelle O’Neill subsequently informed the Northern Assembly that a Sinn Féin employee had made the party’s chief whip “aware of their involvement in an incident” regarding the portrait.
RM Block
The employee, who worked in the Assembly, was immediately suspended and resigned from their job and party membership.
The Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) was also notified.
On Monday, the PPS said it had worked “closely” with the PSNI to “establish what admissible evidence could be obtained regarding the alleged involvement of the reported individual and whether this could support a prosecution” but “despite significant efforts to develop a clear evidential picture, key gaps remained.”
These included a lack of CCTV coverage, the inability to obtain a list of attendees at the event taking place when the damage occurred, and the inability of police to identify any witnesses.
“An email sent by the individual to the Chief Whip tendering his resignation contained no admission,” the PPS said, and a witness statement subsequently given to police by the chief whip “recorded that he had in fact made no admission to being at the event and had denied any knowledge of the damage.
“She said the individual was suspended so that the matter could be investigated by the relevant internal party structures.
“When interviewed by police as a voluntary attender, the reported individual exercised his right not to answer questions.”
The PPS said that “after a thorough consideration by senior prosecutors of the above evidential issues, it was concluded that there was no reasonable prospect of conviction” for a number of reasons.
This included the fact that there was “no evidence of when, or in what circumstances the portrait was damaged” and that “the witness evidence available to the prosecution was the account of the Chief Whip which, as outlined above, did not indicate that any admission had been made and did not incriminate the suspect.”
A spokesperson for the PPS said “prosecutions can only be brought where the available evidence provides a reasonable prospect of proving, beyond reasonable doubt, a breach of the criminal law.
“This was a high-profile incident which generated understandable concerns and commentary about how and why the portrait came to be damaged” and it was “understandable that the suspension and resignation of a Sinn Féin member raised expectations that a prosecution would likely follow.
“However, prosecutors can only initiate proceedings based on the evidence that is available and in this case there were significant evidential gaps which undermined the prospects of a conviction,” the spokesperson said.
“Despite further investigative enquiries being made by police at the request of PPS, it was not possible to overcome these evidential shortcomings.”
