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When the Northern Ireland Policing Board was set up in 2001 there was a palpable sense of change in the air. A new era of policing was about to begin.

Being the grandson of an IRA veteran of the War of Independence, I wondered how my grandfather would have reacted to me serving as an independent member on the new Policing Board alongside another independent member, Viscount Brookeborough, the grandson of Sir Basil ‘never have a Catholic about the place’ Brooke.

He need not have worried as an enduring friendship emerged through a shared ambition to bring about a new start for a police service which could command the support of the entire community in Northern Ireland. What wasinherited was quite different.

It was a start which heralded a change of approach in accountability, both in tone and delivery under the leadership of Sir Desmond Rea and his vice-chairman, Denis Bradley.

It was change originally driven by Sir Ronnie Flanagan when the policing service was in transformation and successfully delivered upon under the stewardship of Sir Hugh Orde.

It was change that saw the establishment of new standards of oversight led by Nuala O’Loan as police ombudsman and change in organisational oversight by the oversight commissioner.

Change, indeed. Real change that brought an end to political policing. Historical change, that ushered in an entirely new era of accountable and cross community policing.

Back then some were slow to grasp the significance of those changes. Back then others begrudgingly fought those changes out of political opportunism rather than for reasons of good policing.

Back then it was a painful process as so much oversight and accountability strained the new order within the policing service as much of its dirty laundry was hung out for all for see.

Thankfully, the board persevered and on the streets – where policing is really measured – the public soon recognised the benefits of a service that works for and with the community to prevent crime, protect life and property and to bring to justice the perpetrators of crime.

The PSNI works and proof that it does is reflected in the confidence expressed in it by the public and its ability to create a balanced workforce that is more reflective of the entire community.

Policing is a front-line service and front line means that often the lives of officers are on the line.

On Monday night an officer paid the ultimate price providing such a service.

He was diligent, brave and responsive to the needs of the community he served.

He had no expectation that he was to be murdered when he answered a call to help a person in distress.

Why would he? After all, are we not at peace?

He fully expected to return home to his family. As a community we shared that expectation for him and all police officers.

While late in coming to the realisation just how much policing had changed in delivery and accountability, Sinn Fein has fairly and unequivocally stepped up to the plate.

Listening to Sinn Fein spokespeople in the media over the past 36 hours, sincerely describing the perpetrators who slaughtered both the soldiers and the police
constable as ‘murderers’ and not as ‘militants’ or ‘combatants’, is incredibly heartening.

Accepting those assertions as being genuine in no way gives credence to misguided claims that it was ever brave or justified to mow down people for just doing their job under the cover of darkness and dressed in a balaclava.

As the Real and Continuity IRA vie to outdo each other with outrageous atrocities, their days of using the community for cover are numbered as it seems as if Sinn Fein’s De Valera moment has arrived and it is visibly recognisable on the faces of their veteran leadership.

They know there is only one option going forward and that is to face down these militants by supporting the legitimate forces of law and order as represented and led by the PSNI.

This is real leadership, like that shown by others who led on the new Policing Board in 2001 because it involves leaving the behind the refuseniks and their ghettoised thinking.

Finally but slowly the suspicion that blurs nationalist/republican understanding, between what is legitimate holding to account of the PSNI and political interference in operational decision making, is beginning to clear.

Sinn Fein’s acceptance of the primacy of policing, and the responsibility of us all to work with the police, means all the main political players are now opting to expend what Hume called their ‘sweat and not their blood’ in toiling for a better society for all.

There could be no better bequeathment for the family of Constable Carroll.