Sectarian gangs trawl for victims

A Catholic man from north Belfast has been viciously stabbed by a unionist gang under the direction of a young woman who yelled: ‘Slice the Fenian bastard’.

The Ardoyne man was stabbed at least six times in the attack on the Crumlin Road on Friday night.

The victim, who does not wish to be named, was walking with a friend when a car with blacked-out windows, and containing two men and a woman, stopped beside them.

“A blonde girl in her twenties asked for directions and got out and was talking to me, asking me stupid questions,” the victim said.

“I was pointing places out to her and she was pointing another way and distracting me and the next thing my hood was pulled up over my head and I felt stabbing.”

The ordeal ended when he punched his attacker in the face.

“My friend said the driver had a machete but he didn’t get to use it,” he said.

“The girl had got back into the car and was shouting ‘Slice the Fenian bastard’.”

The victim has been left with a three-inch gash on his upper right arm and five wounds on his left shoulder, all of which required stitches.

The attack was identical to another incident recently which had taken place in the same area in August, also involving two males, on armed with a machete, and a young woman with blonde hair.

The young Catholic victim on that occasion lost two fingers to the machete.

The latest victim said he intended making a complaint to the Police Ombudsman about his treatment by police in the wake of the attack - which included the seizure of his car because it was untaxed.

Meanwhile, a man who was severely beaten by a unionist gang of 15 men last week has said his attackers were ‘full of sectarian hate’.

“It is only a matter of time before they kill someone,” John McKay said.

“They were just out for the first Catholic they came across.”

The attack took place between the Albertbridge Road and his home in the Short Strand just prior to last weekend’s widespread unionist rioting.

Mr McKay said: “I remember a bottle being thrown at me at the start and the next thing these men caught up with me and were jumping all over me.

“They were kicking me when I was on the ground and the next thing I remember is waking up in hospital and my family being in a terrible state.

“The whole thing happened so quickly.”

He was knocked unconscious in the savage attack in which he suffered serious head and leg injuries and a performated ear drum.

His friend escaped without injury.

Mr McKay said he was in no doubt that his attackers intended to kill him because of his religion.

“The only reason that these people tried to kill me is because they would have known I was a Catholic, because of the direction I was walking in,” he said.

* In the latest sectarian attacks over the weekend, a Catholic secondary school in Portadown has been damaged in an arson attack. The fire broke out at Drumcree College shortly after midnight on Saturday.

A storeroom containing books, papers and other school equipment was destroyed in the incident and two adjoining classrooms were damaged by smoke.

And a blast bomb attack in Derry at the weekend caused damage to a house occupied by two pensioners.

The device was thrown into the predominately Catholic Upper Bennett Street from the mainly unionist Fountain area on Friday night.

Urgent Appeal