DUP Member of the Northern Ireland Policing Board, Jonathan Bell has urged the Chief Constable and senior police officers to liaise closely with social services trusts throughout Northern Ireland to protect children being used by dissident Republican criminals as human shields. Mr Bell said it was important that those parents who permit or allow their children to be used in such a way should be investigated for parental neglect. Speaking today Jonathan Bell MLA said:
“The Chief Constable has confirmed to me that police have identified eight or nine year old children being used in a riot situation.
Using children as human shields shows the depths of barbarism these criminals will stoop to. Two key issues present themselves: parental neglect and significant harm: it is not enough for a parent to say to a child “you can stay out till midnight but steer clear of the riot”. Parents have a legal duty to ensure that their children are not placed at risk of significant harm. Leaving their children at a riot interface, where petrol bombs, gas cylinders, fireworks and heavy masonry, represents a violation of that duty.
There needs to be enhanced co-operation between police and social services, under established legal protocols, to protect vulnerable children. We have now established clear evidence of children as young as eight and nine being exploited by dissident Republican criminals. This should be labelled accurately as child abuse for that is exactly what it is. Using children as human shields or pro-actively purchasing petrol and distributing it to them to throw in petrol bombs is exploitation.
Society cannot tolerate a situation whereby children are being exploited in this way. The parents of those who allow their children to be abused in this way cannot escape their responsibilities. As to those using the children, I have no doubt that they don’t care one way or the other what happens to the kids caught up in riots. Their bitterness and hatred is such that the death of a child wont cause them a second’s thought.”