Editorial: Opening up to the cameras has helped depoliticise the PSNI

The insight provided by the BBC into the work carried out by PSNI officers on the ground has been a real eye opener to the challenges facing the service.

Peelers: The PSNI for Real follows police men and women on the beat, and gives a warts and all view of what they have to deal with.

It was a brave and sensible decision by the police top brass to allow the cameras inside their operation, and even braver for the officers who volunteered to take part.

Any reluctance, in the face of an ongoing and very real terrorist threat, would be entirely understandable. But their decision to show the public who they are professionally, and as individuals, has given the people of Northern Ireland an entirely new perspective on their job.

In a society in where police decisions are already pored over in great detail by political parties, the Policing Board and Police Ombudsman – the public have actually seen very little of the reality of what officers deal with.

That has helped allow the politicisation of the force. Opening up has done more to depoliticise what the PSNI does than anything senior officers or politicians could say.

It has shown a service staffed by ordinary, decent people – doing their very best in the most challenging circumstances.

Most of us, thankfully, will never in our professional careers have to deal with the horrors these brave men and women do. Nor will we have to deal with the level of sectarian, misogynistic and homophobic abuse they do.

It's almost a quarter of a century since we last go a fly-on-the-wall look at how the PSNI operates. A generation has grown up without seeing just what the service does to keep us all safe.

Stephen Nolan's straight-talking series will hopefully do what the chief constable hopes it will – and encourage many more recruits into a service we all rely on.