Question
- Following the work undertaken by the Policing Board alongside the Victims of Crime Commissioner, migrant organizations and NGOs with PSNI, could the Chief Constable set out the new arrangements and instructions that now apply to the circumstances in which witnesses, victims and suspects of crime will have their immigration status checked with the Home Office?
- How many times since the opening of Belfast Grand Central station in October 2025 has the PSNI assisted the Home Office in actions or the stopping of passengers?
- Does PSNI keep statistics cases reported, investigated and prosecuted for the offence of blackmail or other criminal offences associated with extortion by paramilitary organizations (broken down by organization)? If so, could these by set out for the past decade, if not, would the Chief Constable consider recording and publishing such statistics in the future?
Answer
- Following the work undertaken by the Policing Board alongside the Victims of Crime Commissioner, migrant organizations and NGOs with PSNI, could the Chief Constable set out the new arrangements and instructions that now apply to the circumstances in which witnesses, victims and suspects of crime will have their immigration status checked with the Home Office?
The PSNI has published Service Instruction SIO0326 on 30thJanuary 2026. A key priority of the instruction is to ensure that victims and witnesses, especially those with insecure immigration status, feel safe and confident to report crime to police without fear that doing so will adversely affect their immigration status. The Service Instruction makes clear that PSNI will always seek to prioritise victim safety and support over immigration enforcement.
For victims and witnesses, checks on foreign nationals must be conducted through our own police systems and the ACRO portal – not through Home Office Immigration Enforcement (HOIE). Where victims and witnesses have concerns about their immigration status, officers must signpost them to partner organisations. Information will only be shared with the Home Office Immigration Enforcement in very specific circumstances – where checks give reasonable grounds to suspect a history of high-harm offending overseas and it is assessed as necessary and proportionate to prevent further offending and/or to mitigate risk. Referrals based solely on nationality or ethnic background are not permitted.
Every such referral for a victim or witness requires authorisation from the ACC of Justice department, or in their absence the Chief Superintendent or Superintendent of Criminal Justice Branch. In urgent out-of-hours cases, the Duty Officer for the District may act as Authorising Officer in exceptional circumstances, with the ACC Justice Department and the Home Office Immigration Enforcement notified retrospectively as soon as possible.
For criminal suspects and drivers involved in road Traffic collisions, where a individual is recorded as a foreign national, the NICHE system will automatically prompt officers to consider the requirement to carry out the relevant checks and actions. No such Niche prompt is generated in the case of a victim or witness. Officers are permitted to share information with the Home Office for immigration purposes under Section 20 of the Immigration and Asylum Act 1999, and where a suspect is in custody, checks may be made on their immigration status to help inform risk assessment regarding potential bail conditions.
In counter-allegation cases, officers must work to identify the primary victim and perpetrator before any referral is considered, with specific guidance to guide against perpetrators exploiting a victim’s insecure immigration status.
All information sharing with HOIE is routed through a new single Email process, creating a full auditable record subject to oversight by the NI Policing Board, with the NIPB Human Rights Legal Advisor able to review referrals on request.
- How many times since the opening of Belfast Grand Central station in October 2025 has the PSNI assisted the Home Office in actions or the stopping of passengers?
The PSNI’s Safer Transport Team (STT) had three deployments to Belfast Grand Central Station, assisting Home Office Immigration Enforcement (HOIE), with the last deployment on 16th December 2025. Any actions or stopping of passengers for immigration matters were conducted by HOIE officers, the STT were in attendance only to provide public order assistance or deal with other criminal matters that may have arisen.
- Does PSNI keep statistics cases reported, investigated and prosecuted for the offence of blackmail or other criminal offences associated with extortion by paramilitary organizations (broken down by organization)? If so, could these by set out for the past decade, if not, would the Chief Constable consider recording and publishing such statistics in the future?
The crime recording process relies on the recording of specific offences in legislation. While Blackmail and Intimidation are recorded and published as part of the police recorded crime data series, there is no specific criminal offence of ‘Extortion’.
Even if all offence codes relevant to extortion were identified, there is no ‘marker’ on NICHE that forms part of the crime recording process allowing identification of paramilitary involvement and which paramilitary organisation in a specific offence.
Crime Department would raise the following regarding future recording of extortion statistics:
1. HO Accounting Rules govern how stats are recorded; victim-led
2. Intelligence not used to inform stats recording
3. Use of official only stats for publication, updating partners including NIPB
4. Risk of undercounting, over-counting, double counting
5. Risk of unreliable and/or inaccurate data, processes
6. Challenge in defining the stat recording
7. How would you quality assure the crime recording in this regard?
8. Creates disparity between PSNI and other UK Police Services
9. Not having data supportive of a paramilitary grouping being involved is not the same as knowing for sure that it is not paramilitary related.
10. Potential legal challenge from victim/suspect/others that a specific crime recorded as paramilitary related is inaccurate
11. Data protection / GDPR considerations
12. Equality Impact assessment considerations.
13. Paramilitary groups are not homogenous, most are highly factionalised and localised, sometimes making it difficult to ascribe specific activity to a wider group.
In light of the above it would not be feasible to record the information suggested moving forward.
Les Allamby