PSNI asks UUP to remove its logo from press release - after Naomi Long reports the matter on social media
Police asked the Ulster Unionist Party to remove the organisation’s logo from an image accompanying a press release – after the justice minister Naomi Long reported the matter to them in a social media post.
The party had posted criticism of the Alliance leader’s department over the publication of names of police officers on the court service website – saying it was “one calamity after another”.
In the midst of a row over the matter on Wednesday night, the minister took to social media to alert the police that the UUP “are using their corporate branding for party political statements”.
She said the post “creates the impression that [the PSNI] supports the erroneous and misleading claims made by” Doug Beattie.
The News Letter understands that the PSNI then contacted the party, who agreed to remove the police crest from their social media posts.
However, a similar post by the Alliance Party in March 2025 was then circulated online. Sporting a PSNI cap and police car, the statement said that savings from ending segregation “could pay for a full year of PSNI recruitment of officers and staff – stabilising our police numbers and making our streets safer”.
Alliance was asked if its leader accepts that her own party had done the same thing as the UUP, and whether it would be taken down – but did not respond.
The UUP Justice Spokesperson had said that “the latest PSNI data breach is yet another calamity after another with the Justice Department, and a Minister who is never on hand to take responsibility”.
Mr Beattie added: “The latest data breach by the courts, of serving PSNI officers, puts them at risk.
“The slippery answer from the department that this was a legal representative mistake hides the fact that they could have stopped such mistakes from happening”.
However, the minister utterly rejected that characterisation – arguing that it would be “impossible” for her department “to know the employment status/history of every individual listed in the thousands of court proceedings each year”.
She said that the granting of anonymity for officers “is a judicial function, not an administrative one, and an application must be submitted”.