Mr Ringland is a former Ireland rugby international who was born to a police family in West Belfast in 1959. He said his father had been shot by the IRA in North Belfast. Mr Ringland said he worked with victims’ groups in the Republic of Ireland and Northern Ireland. Asked by Mr Gallagher for the public’s perception of Mr Adams, he replied: “He is seen as a peace taker, not a peacemaker.” Under cross-examination, Mr Doyle said the response was a soundbite and asked Mr Ringland if he made it up. The witness replied that it was not a soundbite and added: “I think the vast majority of people in Northern Ireland would regard him as a peace taker.” Mr Ringland said people welcome that violence has stopped but it should not be the case that you thank somebody for stopping something they should not have been doing in the first place. “It is sucking the grace out of our society,” he said. Asked by Judge Alexander Owens if he believed someone’s reputation can change, Mr Ringland said he did but added: “I think Mr Adams’ reputation has not improved”. He said the former Sinn Fein president “messes with people’s minds”, adding: “His reputation is as someone who stepped away from the violent past and is now promoting his constitutional preference through other means. “There is still hatred at the core of that reputation – he is not aiding reconciliation in Northern Ireland.” Mr Doyle asked Mr Ringland if he had been the vice chairman of the Ulster Unionist Party East Belfast branch and had run as a candidate for the party in 2010. He said this was right but that he had subsequently left the party in protest against the leader saying he would not attend a GAA match. Asked if he then joined the “all-inclusive Northern Ireland Conservative Party”, Mr Ringland said he had and had later campaigned for a Labour politician. “I would like to see politics based around social issues rather than politics based around waving a flag.”