In our document on Rosemary Nelson, we included an appendix that listed all known loyalist attacks from 1 January 1999 through 30 April 1999. Given the nature of the document the list focused on loyalist attacks. Since that time, we have continued to document attacks across the North, expanding our remit to include all attacks that might be considered sectarian (sometimes, however, the motives aren’t always clear.)
The following list of sectarian attacks is from 1 February 2000 through to February 29 2000. Should any incidents have inadvertently been left off the list please contact us. The issue of inclusion/exclusion is very problematic. For instance this document does not include punishment beatings 'within' a community, attacks by the security forces on civilians or by civilians on the security forces or murders where the perpetrators are believed to be from the same community and the motive is not thought to have been sectarian. We have also not included violent incidents connected to feuding within loyalism.
We will update this list each month.
Feb 9, Wednesday
RUC plead guilty to Ardoyne attack
In Belfast High Court on Wednesday RUC Reserve Constable Darren James Neill, who was based in Oldpark RUC barracks at the time of the incident, pleaded guilty to assault occasioning actual bodily harm on North Belfast man Bernard Griffin.
Dressed in a dark grey suit and white shirt Neill stood impassively in the dock as he pleaded guilty to further charges of threatening to kill Griffin and perverting the course of justice by making false entries in his RUC notebook claiming that Griffin had assaulted a second RUC man while in the back of a landrover in Ardoyne in February 1998.
As part of the same charge Neill admitted telling a police doctor that Griffin had kicked him and asked for Griffin to be charged with assaulting police and resisting arrest.
In the dock with Neill was RUC Constable Michael Magowan, who was also based at Oldpark barracks at the time of the attack.
Magowan pleaded guilty to a charge of perverting the course of justice by making a false statement about the incident in his RUC notebook. As part of the same charge Magowan admitted inducing a third RUC man and a British soldier to making false statements about the incident.
Granting bail while reports are drawn up before sentence is passed down, trial judge Richard McLoughlin said that this was not just a difficult but also a serious incident which carried severe implications, not only for the two RUC men, but also the entire administration of justice.
Allowing bail so that reports could be drawn up on the two RUC men, trial judge Richard McLoughlin warned Michael Magowan and Darren Neil to make good use of their time as they faced the ‘inevitable consequences’ of their actions. (From North Belfast News)
Feb 19, Saturday
Paint Bombs were thrown at the house of Gerard Rice, the chairman of the Lower Ormeau Concerned Community. This is against a background of attacks on the house in recent months, including unidentified missiles striking with enough force to crack bullet proof windows.
Feb 21, Monday
An incident in Derry’s Creggan estate which highlights the difficulty in defining sectarian attacks.
An attack by Catholic youths in the Creggan estate in Derry on a younger group of Protestants, which was originally thought to have been sectarian, is now widely claimed not to have had sectarianism as its primary motive. The Pat Finucane Centre is reporting this a sectarian attack, however, because a major factor in the cause and in the development of the incident was sectarianism, and, crucially, because it was the perception of the youths who were attacked that it was sectarian;
On Monday 21 Feb nine teenagers from Faughan Valley youth club football team were injured when a mob, members of which were wielding baseball bats, attacked them following a cross-community football (soccer) match at St Mary’s youth club in Creggan. Two of the youths, one of whom had a broken nose, were kept in hospital for treatment. Other terrified youths, one of whom was only 12, tried to get into people’s houses to get shelter from the mob. One fifteen year old jumped a fence and ran the three miles to his Waterside home without stopping.
The attack is believed to be connected to an incident involving a youth from Creggan who had a grudge against St Mary’s youth club. The youth is said to have physically assaulted staff inside the building before coming outside and attacking youths from Faughan valley. It is thought that local youths, seeing an altercation between a Creggan man, one of ‘theirs’, and outsiders, came to his defence, as they saw it.
The explanation does not rule out the strong possibility that there were sectarian undertones fuelling the attack. Following meetings, organised by Derry City mayor Pat Ramsey, between members of both youth clubs, and between the Head Teacher at Faughan Valley with community leaders from Creggan, the Head Teacher at Faughan Valley is said to be satisfied that the motive for the attack was not sectarian, however.
The bottom line for the Pat Finucane Centre remains that there were sectarian overtones to the attack, and that the attack was perceived to be sectarian by some of the victims.
25-26 Feb, Friday, Saturday
Residents in Longlands court in the Whitewell estate in North Belfast, the scene of sectarian attacks over recent months, have had their houses and cars stoned by youths seen by witnesses escaping back into the loyalist White City estate. A controversial application for a loyalist parade route through the area has heightened fears of renewed sectarian tension. The bands applying to march include the Whitewell Defenders, the South East Antrim Defenders and the Cloughfern Young Conquerors from Rathcoole, a band with UDA links and a history of provocative behaviour on parades. One of its members is John Gregg, a UDA man who has served a prison sentence for attempting to murder Gerry Adams.
29Feb,Tuesday
A Catholic man riding home from work on his bike survived a gun attack by loyalists in the Stiles Farm estate in Antrim. The man, who is in his 30s, was approaching his home at 7pm on Tuesday when the loyalist gunmen, driving a red Vauxhall Astra, rammed him, knocked him off his bike and chased him before firing at him with a shotgun. The man suffered a broken shoulder and broken arm as a result of being rammed by the car, but he was not hit by the gunfire. The family home had been attacked on a previous occasion.
Meanwhile in Drumcree…
Small protests of 80 to 100 Orangemen gathered at Drumcree on the nights of February 15, 17 and 25. The gatherings passed off without incident.