Jim Allister's Contribution to News Letter Tribute to HM Prison Service
10 February 2012
Too often the sacrifice of those who served in Her Majesty’s Prison Service does not get the profile it deserves. They experienced not just the daily venom of terrorist inmates but put their lives at risk at home and in work, with many murdered.
It is one of the unacceptable absurdities of the so called ‘peace process’ that the terrorists our brave prison officers detained were in the end elevated to rule over us. Gerry Kelly, who shot a prison officer in the head during the infamous Maze escape, epitomises this travesty. Eulogies from those Unionist politicians, who to this day sustain these arrangements, are shallow compared with the huge debt that we all owe our Prison Service.
In helping save their title and emblems from the humiliation to which the RUC was subjected we show both respect and much needed appreciation.
