AN EMBLEM WORN by some PSNI officers during demonstrations in Belfast on Saturday “were not intended to cause any offence”.

A number of officers were photographed wearing patches that depicted a Spartan helmet with the Roman numeral for three on the forehead. It has been claimed that the badges are extremely similar to those worn by the Three Percenters, a far-right militia based in the US and Canada.

Following the 6 January Capitol Hill riot in Washington DC, six men associated with the group were indicted on terrorism charges, and the group was officially labelled as a terrorist organisation by the Canadian government. The national organisation in the US was dissolved after the riot, but local chapters remain.

However, a spokesperson for the PSNI said that they were not based on any other groups emblem, and were intended “purely for identification of each individual unit and for ease of reference for supervisors”.

“They do not comply with our uniform standards however and will not be worn again.”

Liam Kelly, chairperson of the Policing Federation of Northern Ireland representative group, called concern over the use of the patches a “nonsense story”.

“The reality is that various units have various insignia, and that’s for the crews themselves to identify each other in the dark. We have diamonds, we have we have circles, we have all sorts of different shape, sizes and things.

Riots have occured in Belfast since Saturday night, with police coming under attack at a number of points in South Belfast. Last night, petrol bombs were thrown at officers, and a police Land Rover was set alight.

With reporting from Diarmuid Pepper.