Consideration given to recruiting 50% women to newly formed PSNI, records show

Consideration was given to recruiting men and women to the new PSNI on a 50:50 basis, declassified files have shown (Liam McBurney/PA) - (PA Archive)

Consideration was given to recruiting women into Northern Ireland’s new police force on a 50:50 basis with men to address their “severe under-representation”, declassified files have revealed.

However, legal advice was that a policy that half of new recruits to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) should be women was “not viable”, a memo from 2002 said.