Irish Republican News · September 20, 2010

Murder bid on Antrim home

A sectarian murder attempt took place on the home of a vulnerable Catholic family in Rasharkin, County Antrim in the early hours of yesterday morning.

A petrol bomb broke the front window and scorched the windowsill. Fortunately, a member of the public spotted the flames and extinguished them.

This was the second time in three weeks that the Wallace Park family - a mother and daughter - have been targeted.

A brick was thrown through the same window in the first attack.

The PSNI admitted the attacks were sectarian, but would not identify the organisation responsible.

North Antrim Sinn Fein Assembly member Daithi McKay described the attack as attempted murder and blamed loyalists.

He said: “The family are very shaken, because this is the second time the house has been attacked.

“They are in shock because they have never been involved in anything political.”

Elsewhere, two Catholic girls aged 14 and 17yrs were the target of a sectarian attack by loyalist band-members in nearby Coleraine, County Derry on Friday night.

The pair sustained facial injuries when they were assaulted by a loyalist band close to Greenhall Highway in the town.

Sinn Fein’s East Derry representative Billy Leonard has described the weekend assault ad “the lowest of the low”

The band members arrived at the Greenmount shops area of Coleraine in a minibus. Some of them immediately got out of the vehicle and charged at a group of young men.

“As they returned to their minibus without getting the fight they obviously wanted, one of the uniformed bandsmen literally kicked the 14 year old girl on the side of her head,” said Mr Leonard.

“We could have so easily been talking about a death if the kick had landed a couple of centimetres away.

“The young girl was badly bruised particularly around her eye and then treated for her injuries at Causeway’s A&E unit.

“This has obviously been extremely traumatic for the young lady, her friends at the scene and then her parents,” he said.

He added that he would be talking to the Parades Commission about their role in the incident.

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