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13/06/2012
Police Officers Disciplined Over Wedding Arrests
Three PSNI officers arrested a man and his pregnant fiancée on their wedding day, under the wrong suspicion that it was a 'sham marriage'.
The Londonderry officers have been disciplined after a Police Ombudsman investigation.
Neil McElwee from Castlederg and Yanan Sun from China were unlawfully detained moments before their wedding ceremony at the Guildhall, the probe found.
The couple were put in separate cars and forced to change into police-issue clothes in separate cells at a police station, until five hours later when their solicitor intervened.
An anonymous tip-off letter police had based their information on turned out to be incorrect.
PSNI Inspector John Burrows said the police had acted in good faith, but sometimes they got things wrong.
Mr McElwee said the couple's day "crumbled" with the police intervention, and although he and Yanan were married the next day in Castlederg, they "never talk" about the wedding.
He said he was "not satisfied" with the unnamed disciplinary action taken against the officers.
"We went through such a bad time, it was torment," he told the BBC. "My wife has not been the same since."
The couple's solicitor Karina Breslin-Carlin said the police action was a "farce".
She said: "The police had time to redeem this situation so the couple could have carried on with their day, but they did not. This is not good enough under any circumstances."
(NE)
The Londonderry officers have been disciplined after a Police Ombudsman investigation.
Neil McElwee from Castlederg and Yanan Sun from China were unlawfully detained moments before their wedding ceremony at the Guildhall, the probe found.
The couple were put in separate cars and forced to change into police-issue clothes in separate cells at a police station, until five hours later when their solicitor intervened.
An anonymous tip-off letter police had based their information on turned out to be incorrect.
PSNI Inspector John Burrows said the police had acted in good faith, but sometimes they got things wrong.
Mr McElwee said the couple's day "crumbled" with the police intervention, and although he and Yanan were married the next day in Castlederg, they "never talk" about the wedding.
He said he was "not satisfied" with the unnamed disciplinary action taken against the officers.
"We went through such a bad time, it was torment," he told the BBC. "My wife has not been the same since."
The couple's solicitor Karina Breslin-Carlin said the police action was a "farce".
She said: "The police had time to redeem this situation so the couple could have carried on with their day, but they did not. This is not good enough under any circumstances."
(NE)
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