THE police corporal involved in the shooting of motorist William Harty on the Old Harbour main road on Friday night has been ordered removed from front line duty, the Constabulary Communication Network (CCN) said yesterday.

A CCN spokesperson said that the corporal’s firearm has been seized for ballistic testing and his hands swabbed.

Harty, 55, who was shot four times by the police corporal during a traffic jam at McCooks Pen, was still in hospital yesterday. He received four bullet wounds to his shoulder, neck and on one of his fingers.

Meanwhile, the Farquharson Institute of Public Affairs will today be writing to Police Commissioner Francis Forbes about the incident.

The institute said, after a meeting last night, that its chairman Frank Phipps will be asking Forbes to say what steps have been taken in this matter and what plans the constabulary had to bring the matter to a satisfactory conclusion.

Harty, who was one of a number of motorists who had driven their vehicles onto the soft shoulder in an effort to make some headway during the traffic jam, said that he was stopped by the corporal. After he moved from the soft shoulder back into a space in the line of traffic, the police corporal stood in front of his car and said “you nuh hear me say you to stand up over there so”. The policeman then pulled a gun and fired four shots through the windscreen of Harty’s Nissan Bluebird motor car.

The corporal, however, said that after stopping Harty on the soft shoulder and instructing him to rejoin the line, he attempted to drive the vehicle down on him. The policeman said that he fired two shots, one of which caught Harty on his left upper shoulder.