NORTHERN Ireland police officers who took redundancy payments under the Patten reforms have become guns for hire in trouble spots around the world.

Retired RUC officers work in all the European Union accession states and there are hundreds on policing and security contracts in Iraq and Afghanistan. While some of the work is high risk, the financial rewards are attractive for officers paid off in their forties and early fifties as the RUC was dissolved.

Their departure is being felt at home, however, with the PSNI suffering a serious skills shortage. Last week the force was criticised by the Criminal Justice Inspectorate for assigning recruits who had not been properly trained to investigations.

Many of the officers who took early retirement are working on high-value international contracts for Northern Ireland Public Sector Enterprises (NI-CO) a government-owned marketing company.

Graeme McCammon, one of its directors, said: “It is a big advantage being able to access the expertise freed up by Patten. In many parts of the world, people see parallels between our experience in Northern Ireland and what is happening in their countries.”

Of 35 policing and justice projects that NI-CO has applied for, it has won 24. The latest is a €4m (£2.68m) programme to enhance the accountability, efficiency and effectiveness of the Turkish gendarmerie in preparation for EU entry.

One of the officers working on that project is understood to be former detective superintendent Andy Sproule, 47, who headed the PSNI’s organised crime squad until he retired in June.

So many officers are working in EU accession states that they have started to link up with police forces in the UK to combat organised crime. When Lithuanian men were recently accused of raping a woman in Armagh, the PSNI was able to contact Lithuanian police through one of its former officers working on a training project. “It is the sort of thing that can take weeks working through embassies. We were able to do it straight away,” said McCammon.

“We are looking at court house security and money laundering in Bulgaria, because the country could lose EU funds if it doesn’t crack its organised crime problem. Some of the Northern Bank money is believed to have been laundered through Bulgaria. There have been links between Irish paramilitary groups and other parts of eastern Europe, such as Croatia, where we are also working. ”

Chris Albiston, a former head of RUC Special Branch, has served as police commissioner in Kosovo and is now working on a contract in Slovakia. “There is no shortage of work, just of time to do it,” he said. “I and a group of colleagues have carried out missions in Dubai, Oman, Pakistan and Bulgaria, with a visit to Saudi Arabia forthcoming.”

George Clydesdale, a detective inspector with the PSNI fraud squad until he retired this year, is tackling money laundering and organised crime in Lithuania and Poland. “I was too young to retire and put my feet up and the financial package was too attractive to refuse,” he said. “The PSNI wanted to get rid of people like me but now there is a skills shortage and the force will be in a bit of a mess until it solves it.”

John Horan, once the PSNI’s money laundering expert, now provides training to banks, lawyers and estate agents. “There is no way I would have gone if it hadn’t been for the Patten package,” he said. “In Poland I was part of their anti-corruption strategy training.”

Stephen White, a former PSNI assistant chief constable, has served as chief of police in Basra and now heads an EU project which has trained more than 840 Iraqi judges, senior police officers, prison governors and other justice professionals at facilities across Europe.

White, who led the early implementation of the Patten reforms, said: “I don’t know too many police officers who were weary and tired and wanted out. We all knew when we were serving that there were a lot of men and a lot of Protestants and there was an imbalance.

“In correcting that imbalance, however, the service lost a lot of expertise and that expertise is now welcome all around the world.”

In Baghdad, White says that he met former RUC Special Branch officers working in intelligence and training. Hundreds more work as bodyguards.

Stephen Day, 53, a former RUC superintendent, was recently chief of police in Mesan province in Iraq. “There is no doubt that RUC experience is valued abroad and it opens doors,” Day said.

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