Derry councillor walks out of Guildhall chamber after PSNI invited to address public meeting

An independent Derry councillor walked out of the Guildhall chamber earlier this evening after the PSNI was invited to speak at a public meeting.

It happened at a special meeting of Derry City and Strabane District Council which was convened to discuss the response to the recent floods which devastated the northwest, and included a number of agencies such as NI Water, the Red Cross and the PSNI.

At the outset of the meeting, the independent unionist councillor Maurice Devenney said that he was happy to see that some councillors who were opposed to the police had remained despite the presence of the PSNI.

However, the independent councillor Paul Gallagher said that the PSNI were in the public gallery, and not actually taking part in the meeting, describing the previous comments as 'cheap political point scoring'.

Later in the same meeting, PSNI Chief Inspector Alan Hutton was invited from the public gallery with a number of representatives from other agencies to address those in attendance.

At that point, the independent councillor Gary Donnelly, pictured above, walked out of the meeting.