I'm going to be crushed alive - police officer

A PSNI vehicle extensively damaged after being rammed off the motorway near Randalstown in County Antrim in April 2020

A police sergeant has described how she feared being "crushed alive" when her vehicle was rammed by a lorry in south Armagh.

It happened just outside Jonesborough in March 2021.

"I heard the roar of the engine and I could see in the rear view mirror that the lorry had come within inches of the bumper of our police vehicle," she told BBC News NI.

"I think I shouted to the others in the vehicle ‘he’s going to ram us’ then the lorry continued back and forward, colliding and impacting with the back of our police vehicle."

The PSNI officer whose vehicle was rammed in South Armagh was off duty for six weeks

There have been 154 ramming incidents involving police vehicles since 2020, according to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).

Six vehicles also have been put permanently out of use and repair costs for others have ranged from £4,000 to £45,000 over the same period.

During the incident near Jonesborough, the officer said her police vehicle was pushed into the middle of the main road where other cars were travelling at speeds of up to 60mph.

"The police car spun right around," she said.

"I was sitting as the front seat passenger and I was now looking up at his passenger side wheel and I can visualise it at my door and thinking ‘I’m going to be crushed alive here’.

"But eventually he just squeezed past us and headed straight to the border."

The PSNI said officers were left "shaken" after their vehicle was rammed in Crossmaglen in March 2024

The sergeant and her team from Newry's Ardmore Police Station had been assisting HMRC in a joint operation at a commercial site on the Edenappa Road near Jonesborough when they were rammed.

"That type of operation would be fairly routine for us," she said.

“We go as a partner agency. That day we came in and got our briefing. There was no intelligence to suggest that anything untoward was going to happen."

She told BBC News NI that she was about to get out of her vehicle at the top of the convoy when she saw the lorry out of the corner of her eye.

The officer was off duty for six weeks.

“I don’t think it really hit home until I got home that evening," she added.

“My son had heard a bulletin on the news that the police had been rammed and he came running to the door crying and I was thinking ‘Oh my goodness, this isn’t just me anymore I have my children to consider and my job could have implications for my family life’."

The unmarked armoured vehicle the sergeant was travelling in was extensively damaged

In April a motion was passed at Stormont condemning those responsible for ramming incidents, which have led to 77 officers being injured in 2023 alone.

The motion also sought to find solutions to tackle the problem.

It was originally brought forward by DUP assembly member Keith Buchanan, but was passed after a Sinn Féin amendment which removed a line that read - "highlights that the spate of such attacks in south Armagh has coincided with far-reaching and politically-motivated policing reforms in the area".

According to PSNI statistics, 32 of the 154 ramming incidents since 2020 were in the Newry, Mourne and Down region.

Other ramming incidents happened in Belfast, Omagh, Randalstown, Strabane and Fivemiletown.

The officer said every member of her team has had first-hand experience of being rammed.

“There’s one sergeant in my team, which is myself and there’s eight constables beneath me and every single one of the constables has been involved in a ramming incident in south Armagh," she said.

The type of incidents can vary, according to the officer.

She said it might be a "drink driver trying to evade capture and detection", but that her team were also rammed during a domestic incident in November.