1 May 1997 Edition
RIR assault Short Strand nationalists
MEMBERS OF THE RIR AND RUC were involved in a series of assaults on Short Strand nationalists in the early hours of Saturday 26 April which left one man with a broken arm.
The incident started when 32 year old Peter O'Neill, whose father was shot dead by loyalists in 1994, was going home from a party and met an RIR foot patrol. Some of the patrol were shouting, ``this is the UVF on patrol''. According to O'Neill one of the soldiers then called his girlfriend a ``slut'' and a ``whore''. When O'Neill approached an RUC member who was with the soldiers to make a complaint the RUC man said he hadn't heard anything.
But when O'Neill insisted that the RUC do something, ``all hell broke loose''. An RUC woman assaulted O'Neill's girlfriend and the RIR and RUC attacked O'Neill who later had to have three staples to a head wound.
It was when John McLaughlin and some other men went to help the others that McLaughlin ended up with a broken arm.
McLaughlin was knocked to the ground by a baton and was hit by an RIR man while lying there.
Sinn Fein's East Belfast spokesperson Dominic Corr said ``the RIR is a sectarian force and should be withdrawn from the area. Their past and present track record of attacks on the community and their involvement with loyalist paramilitaries makes them totally unacceptable''.
The incident started when 32 year old Peter O'Neill, whose father was shot dead by loyalists in 1994, was going home from a party and met an RIR foot patrol. Some of the patrol were shouting, ``this is the UVF on patrol''. According to O'Neill one of the soldiers then called his girlfriend a ``slut'' and a ``whore''. When O'Neill approached an RUC member who was with the soldiers to make a complaint the RUC man said he hadn't heard anything.
But when O'Neill insisted that the RUC do something, ``all hell broke loose''. An RUC woman assaulted O'Neill's girlfriend and the RIR and RUC attacked O'Neill who later had to have three staples to a head wound.
It was when John McLaughlin and some other men went to help the others that McLaughlin ended up with a broken arm.
McLaughlin was knocked to the ground by a baton and was hit by an RIR man while lying there.
Sinn Fein's East Belfast spokesperson Dominic Corr said ``the RIR is a sectarian force and should be withdrawn from the area. Their past and present track record of attacks on the community and their involvement with loyalist paramilitaries makes them totally unacceptable''.