Elderly Strabane woman lay cowering in fear as home under attack

Sinn Féin West Tyrone MLA Michaela Boyle says that an elderly Strabane woman lay cowering in fear in her bed last night as a group of young people set about destroying the front wall and security gate of her bungalow home in the Bridgend area of the town.

 Relaying the traumatic ordeal endured by the pensioner the local MLA said,

“I was contacted by the victim of this sickening attack this morning and immediately called to see her in her home.  She is still visibly shaken and upon witnessing the extent of the damage that has been done to the front wall and security gate of her bungalow, I can only begin to imagine the absolute state of fear she must have been in as those involved were engaged in their frenzy of destruction.

“She recounted how she cowering in her bed as she thought that, at one stage, the banging and crashing was coming from the roof of her home and was so frozen in fear that she could not even make it to the phone to contact the PSNI.  She lives alone and has been so traumatised by the ordeal that she doesn’t want to stay in her home tonight.

“Local people are asking where the police were last night given that the bungalow is in the direct line of sight of cameras mounted on the barracks. More generally, the PSNI is fully aware of the constant stream of complaints from residents in the Bridgend area about the various incidents of anti-community activity spilling over from two notorious under-age drinking hotspots and given other reported attacks on homes and property in Waterside Street and Bridge Street earlier this week, the community is right in its expectation that the PSNI should be doing more to address this long-standing problem.
 
“The scourge of underage drinking and the associated problems that go with it require a collective community and multi-agency response but the PSNI owe it to the unfortunate victim of last night’s attack and the wider community in the Bridgend to act now in an effort to bring an end the weekly cycle of destruction that they are being forced to endure.”