Overview
- A Sky News helicopter filmed two on-call firefighters apparently shoving each other while they were responding to a vehicle fire at a Department for Infrastructure site near Sandyknowes roundabout during recent disorder.
- After the footage aired the crew were asked to give statements and were later told at a station training session that they were suspended on full pay, asked to hand in their pagers, and escorted from the premises.
- The Northern Ireland Fire & Rescue Service has declined to comment on individual employee matters while the service's internal procedures continue and the Fire Brigades Union has been approached for comment.
- A source close to the pair told reporters the interaction was ‘banter’ and that the two were friends who were ‘messing about,’ a claim that contrasts with the decision to remove them from duty.
- The suspensions have become part of wider coverage of unrest in the area, which includes a high-profile knife attack that left a man in hospital, and they may sharpen public and political scrutiny of emergency-worker conduct during civil disorder.