PC guilty of misconduct over anti-Irish term

PC Kevin Courtney was found guilty of misconduct but was cleared of gross misconduct

A Merseyside Police officer was found guilty of misconduct after calling a Northern Irish colleague a "Fenian".

PC Kevin Courtney made the comment while responding to reports that a group of Travellers had set up camp in a Tesco car park on 9 August, 2023.

The word is considered by some a derogatory term for Irish Catholics, and an independent disciplinary panel concluded it was capable of causing "deep offence".

PC Courtney was cleared of gross misconduct after the panel concluded he did not appreciate the derogatory nature of the word.

'Deeply upset'

The panel ruled it was the officer's responsibility to ensure he did not use offensive language.

The 25-year veteran of the force has since retired and will therefore face no sanction.

The panel had heard that in a police van on the way to the Tesco store PC Courtney was listing different names for Irish Travellers and joked that his Northern Irish colleague would "need to translate".

But the junior officer said he was "genuinely and deeply upset" when PC Courtney said "that's because you're a Fenian", and later reported the incident.

The term Fenian originally referred to a member of the Irish Republican Brotherhood, a 19th century nationalist organisation which fought for a united Ireland.

However it has since evolved into an offensive term for Irish Catholics and is often used in a sectarian context.

PC Courtney told the panel he believed it had "positive connotations" and was not aware it was a negative slur.

The panel at Merseyside Police HQ heard that PC Courtney had served on an RAF base in Northern Ireland for two years

The panel noted that the word was "not in common use" and said some of its members had not heard it before.

In its ruling, it wrote: "As we have said this is not a term in frequent modern use; it's archaic and there is therefore room for misunderstanding about it in a way which would not apply to other racial terms."

The panel heard that PC Courtney had been posted to a base in Northern Ireland as a serviceman in the Royal Air Force before his policing career.

However it said it would be "speculative" to assume PC Courtney would have been aware of the word during his two years there.

The panel said it could find no motive for PC Courtney to deliberately cause offence to a junior colleague and no evidence of an "underlying prejudice".

They said: "Pulling together the threads of what we acknowledge has not been an easy task, we find that the officer thought he was referring to Irishness.

"That was unnecessary and inappropriate in any event, but he did not understand the true meaning of the word he used."

The finding meant that PC Courtney would not have faced immediate dismissal if he had remained on the force.

Merseyside Police has been contacted for comment.