TWENTY-five years ago this month, myself and 19 others from civic society and political parties gave policing in the north a rebirth by joining the new Northern Ireland Policing Board to oversee the Patten reforms and the creation of the PSNI.

On a personal level, it was not easy. Most of my community were estranged from the partisan RUC.

To be clear, they were to us oppressors, tormentors, institutionally biased and prejudiced. To the wider nationalist community, the RUC was a force to be feared and distrusted – even before the outbreak of the Troubles.

I had worked for the late Seamus Mallon, the SDLP justice spokesperson, and had written literally hundreds of statements and letters about RUC abuses of process, infringement of rights and corrosive on-the-ground practices.

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As a young person, I suffered the indignities of the indiscriminate stop-and-search tactics by many bigoted officers who could not see further than a surname, school uniform or home address.

Policing was the final part of the peace jigsaw and reform was essential for its survival.

In any normal society, the Patten proposals would have been regarded as moderate, reasonable and created to ensure a better police service was more representative and suitable for a society emerging from a prolonged conflict.

Unionists and loyalists reacted in a predictable way. To them, the RUC was their police service and an integral part of their culture – both of which were........

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