Northern Ireland police chief to leave for new role

Hugh Orde, Northern Ireland's police chief, will leave his post later this year to become president of the Association of Chief Police Officers, creating a vacancy for one of the world's toughest policing jobs.

Orde, who has held Northern Ireland's top police job since 2002, will take over the full-time, four-year presidency of the ACPO in the autumn, the province's Policing Board said in a statement after he was elected to the post today.

"Sir Hugh brings a wealth of experience and leadership to ACPO at what is likely to be a very difficult and challenging time for the service," Ken Jones, the current ACPO president said in the statement.

Orde is a high profile figure in Northern Ireland, where recent attacks by dissident pro-Irish nationalists have rattled over a decade of peace and put the republicans back on Britain's security agenda.

He became embroiled in controversy earlier this year following the deployment of military specialists to help police handle the threat from dissident nationalists, who want to rid the province of British control by force.

Last month, two British soldiers and a policeman were killed in separate ambushes by dissidents, and the groups, made up of former members of the Irish Republican Army (IRA), have vowed further attacks, including in mainland Britain.

The IRA ended its guerrilla campaign after a 1998 peace agreement halted 30 years of fighting between minority pro-Irish Catholics and pro-British Protestants which killed more than 3,600 people.

The province has enjoyed relative peace since the peace deal but rioting and violence do break out periodically at interface flashpoints in Belfast, where Catholics and Protestants live cheek by jowl.

Orde was credited with steering the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) through its early years after it was created in 2001 to replace the Protestant-dominated Royal Ulster Constabulary with a more impartial force.

Earlier this year, he narrowly missed out on becoming head of London's police force, where he started his career in 1977, working his way up to the rank of deputy assistant commissioner.