PSNI Chief: Dissident republicans claim to be in possession of leaked police information

Northern Ireland's Police Chief Constable Simon Byrne has said he will not be stepping down from his role.

It comes after he revealed dissident republicans claim to be in possession of information circulating on WhatsApp following a data blunder.

Mr Byrne also said he is deeply sorry over what he called an industrial scale breach of data.

He told a press conference: "For what we understand has caused the breach we have taken immediate steps to remedy that, so in effect in future nothing else will be issued on a spreadsheet, it will go in a PDF format so that it can't link to another part of information.

"In terms of my own position, firstly in the short term my priority is about the wellbeing of officers and staff as we navigate our way through this crisis.

"But equally I know it's a question that people will be asking, I don't think leadership is about walking away, it's facing up to your responsibilities and I think the organisation needs consistency and calm heads at the moment across the team to lead us through what we accept is an unprecedented crisis."

Asked if members of the Policing Board mentioned him resigning, Mr Byrne replied: "No, they didn't."

A police issue laptop stolen along with documents from a car in Newtownabbey in July has not been recovered, it has been confirmed.

"We haven't recovered the stolen property, I know there is speculation about how and why it may have been stolen but we're in now an investigation which is in its early stages, and we can't confirm much else," Chief Constable Simon Byrne said.

He said they have means of wiping devices remotely, and laptops are protected by password.

"So we're quite confident that any information on those devices will not be accessible by a third party," Mr Byrne said.

Up to 40 officers at MI5's headquarters in Co Down are reportedly among the names involved in the blunder earlier this week, with moves under way to ensure their protection.

The incident happened when the PSNI responded to a Freedom of Information request seeking the number of officers and staff of all ranks and grades across the organisation.

In the published response to this request a table was embedded which contained the rank and grade data, but also included detailed information that attached the surname, initial, location and departments for all PSNI employees.

Mr Byrne cut short a family holiday to return to Belfast to be questioned by politicians at the Policing Board meeting, which was held in private.