No prosecution over vandalism to portrait of DUP peer, PPS says

There will be no prosecution over an incident where a portrait of a former DUP lord mayor was vandalised at Belfast City Hall, the Public Prosecution Service (PPS) has said.

The damage to the portrait of DUP peer Lord Wallace Browne was discovered after an event hosted by an external organisation in the building last October.

First Minister Michelle O’Neill later informed the Northern Ireland Assembly that a Sinn Fein employee had made the party chief whip aware of their involvement in an incident regarding a portrait and that they had been suspended and then resigned.

The incident was investigated by police as a hate crime.

However the PPS has now stated there is “no reasonable prospect of conviction for any criminal offence on the evidence available”.

DUP leader Gavin Robinson described the PPS decision as a “shame”.

The PPS said it had worked closely with the PSNI to establish “what admissible evidence could be obtained regarding the alleged involvement of the reported individual and whether this could support a prosecution”.

It added: “Despite significant efforts to develop a clear evidential picture, key gaps remained.”

The PPS statement said there was no CCTV coverage of the area around the portrait, as the relevant camera had been “out of service for some time”.

It added that attempts to obtain a list of attendees from the external group responsible for hosting the event were unsuccessful and police were “unable to identify any individual who had witnessed the relevant events”.

The PPS said an email sent by the individual to the chief whip tendering his resignation “contained no admission”, adding the email from the chief whip advising PSNI of the resignation stated that it had been tendered “as a result of” the incident.

The PPS said witness statement subsequently made in February 2025 by the chief whip, who had spoken directly to the individual on October 21 2024, “recorded that he had in fact made no admission to being at the event and had denied any knowledge of the damage”.

The PPS said the chief whip has said the individual was suspended so that the matter could be investigated by the relevant internal party structures.

It added that when interviewed by police as a voluntary attender, the “reported individual exercised his right not to answer questions”.

The PPS added: “After a thorough consideration by senior prosecutors of the above evidential issues, it was concluded that there was no reasonable prospect of conviction.”

It said there was “no evidence of when, or in what circumstances the portrait was damaged”.

The PPS added: “The witness evidence available to the prosecution was the account of the chief whip which, as outlined above, did not indicate that any admission had been made and did not incriminate the suspect”.

A PPS spokesperson said: “Prosecutions can only be brought where the available evidence provides a reasonable prospect of proving, beyond reasonable doubt, a breach of the criminal law.

“This was a high-profile incident which generated understandable concerns and commentary about how and why the portrait came to be damaged. “

“It is understandable that the suspension and resignation of a Sinn Fein member raised expectations that a prosecution would likely follow.

“However, prosecutors can only initiate proceedings based on the evidence that is available and in this case there were significant evidential gaps which undermined the prospects of a conviction.

“Despite further investigative enquiries being made by police at the request of PPS, it was not possible to overcome these evidential shortcomings.”

Speaking at Stormont, Mr Robinson said: “I think that’s a shame. I think we all know because the story leads to this building, the individual that was responsible.”

He added: “It is a matter for the PPS if they don’t have the evidence to withhold a prosecution.

“But shameful acts like that occur quite often.

“What we need in this society is a criminal justice system that responds when people err.”

The incident last year came shortly after a decision to remove former Sinn Fein lord mayor Niall O Donnghaile’s portrait from City Hall after he had quit the party over sending inappropriate texts to a teenager.