Malaysian Airlines officials have confirmed that nine Britons were on board the passenger aircraft which was shot down over Ukraine yesterday.

Around 100 of those on board the flight were delegates heading to a conference on AIDS in Melbourne, Australia. 

It is not clear if any of the Britons were from Northern Ireland, but it has been confirmed that one was Glen Thomas, a 49-year-old media relations officer who had previously worked in the BBC.

 Malaysia Airlines have released figures saying flight MH17 was carrying at least 173 Dutch nationals, 44 Malaysians (including 15 crew),  27 Australians,12 Indonesians and nine Britons.

British Foreign Secretary Philip Hammond said: "We're determined to get to the bottom of understanding what has happened here.

"As yet, we do not have any definitive information about how this incident occurred and I don't want to speculate at this stage. We believe that there must be a UN-led international investigation of the facts."

A suspicious device left at Alliance's East Belfast office last night has been declared a hoax.

Explosives experts were called in to deal with the suspect package on Friday night and roads around the Newtownards Road office were sealed off for some time. 

The constituency office of East Belfast MP Naomi Long has been targeted a number of times in the past, more recently by petrol bomb attack. 

 Alliance MLA Chris Lyttle, who shares the office with Naomi Long, said: "This incident is yet another attack on the hardworking Alliance team in east Belfast who serve everyone in the community.

"Alliance will continue to work for everyone in east Belfast and this incident will not deter us from serving our constituency on the mandate we have been given."

Maghaberry Prison

Army experts are currently examining a suspicious device at Maghaberry prison.

The object was found inside the jail before noon on Monday.

A number of prisoners had to be evacuated during the alert.

A spokesperson said that the jail is currently on '"lock down".

Raymond McCord

Raymond McCord is standing down as a victims campaigner.

The man who took on the UVF and won has revealed it’s time to stand down. 

In an exclusive interview with the Sunday World the 60-year-old grandfather says ‘enough is enough’ as he prepares to rebuild what he describes as a ‘normal life.’

The north Belfast man has survived dozens of death threats, attempts on his life, and a 20 year hate campaign as he uncovered the murky world of security force collusion and championed victims’ rights.

In that time he has become the unofficial spokesman for victims and their families, a thorn in the side of politicians and paramilitaries alike.

It’s impossible to say how many lives he has saved, certainly it runs to the hundreds.

But it has come at a huge price. He freely admits his health has suffered, he has had dark days of depression, he can’t remember the last time he had an undisturbed night of sleep.

His family, sons Gareth and Glen and former wife Vivien, with whom he maintains a strong relationship, have lived under intense pressure since Raymond’s murder fearful for their own safety and that of McCord.

“The whole thing has put my family through the ringer, it’s been a long road for them, I owe it to them to step back.”

A recent development in which saw a UVF figure give a statement to the Police Ombudsman detailing his own involvement and that of others in the Raymond’s murder means there may be light at the end of a very long tunnel. He has decided to devote his energies to finally winning justice for his son.

“I go to bed with a headache and get up with one, it’s been like that for years,” he said.

“When I go home at night I’m on my own, I can’t relax, it’s there all the time and it has had a big impact on my health, I want to have a decent quality of life while I still can.”

It was a ‘career’ he hadn’t asked for until fate dealt him and his family the most cruel of hands. 

His son Raymond jnr, pictured right, who had left home for a career in the RAF was murdered by the UVF, lured to Ballyduff Quarry on the outskirts of Belfast he was bludgeoned to death.

The killing was the work of Mount Vernon UVF, ordered by local commander Mark Haddock, set up by Darren Moore who had been a friend to Raymond jnr, and carried out by Willie Young and John Bond – no-one has been convicted of the killing and all four were later unmasked as RUC informers, touts.

They had been protected by their police handlers. For McCord, dealing with his son’s murder was a fast learning curve.

“It didn’t take me long to realise there was no interest in solving Raymond’s murder,” he said.

 

“What I couldn’t believe was the depth of collusion in the police, how far they were prepared to go to protect people like Haddock and Young.”

 

Up to that point McCord had been an ordinary working class man, brought up on York Road and in the sprawling Rathcoole estate in Newtownabbey, he had a reputation as a hard man always ready to use his fists.

 

“I’ve dropped a few over the years, but that’s how it was then, that’s how you sorted disputes.”

Now he was thrust into the world of politics.

“The police were bad enough, don’t start me on politicians. Not one unionist politician came to Raymond’s funeral, not one came to express their sympathies, it was nine years before Ian 

Paisley agreed to see me and then it was only 10 minutes at Stormont.

“I spoke to David Trimble (then UUP leader) on the phone for three minutes, I rang his office to set up an appointment and I’m still waiting for them to come back to me.”

From the moment his son drew his last breath, McCord himself became a target for the UVF. 

He has lost count of the amount of times police have visited his home to inform him his life was under threat, he has escaped at least two serious attempts to kill him, a booby trap bomb planted under his car and one attempted abduction thanks to a friendly tip off from within the UVF.

“Just because someone is in the UVF doesn’t make them a bad person, I know lots of people in the organisation some of them are my friends, but I have never been tempted to join any of them, I have spent my life fighting them, standing up to them.

“I’m no angel, I’ve done a few things in my time but never a paramilitary, never.”

His campaign to expose his son’s killers became a magnet for the hundreds who have lost loved ones but found themselves without a voice, it was the first time victims and their families had come together as a cohesive ‘force’ and it was their pressure and lobbying that contributed to the publication of then Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan’s report into Mount Vernon UVF.

It was the first official confirmation of what McCord had been saying for years – loyalist killers were being allowed to get away with murder because they worked for the police.

It still didn’t provoke unionist politicians who saw it was an attack on the RUC rather than an opportunity to support victims.

“The political parties talk a lot about victims and the past but don’t actually do anything about it, we don’t even have a Victims Commissioner at the moment, even after all this time victims don’t have a voice.”

McCord’s has been the one consistent voice. 

He has taken his message to the Capitol Hill, he has briefed American presidents, addressed the Sinn Fein Ard Fheis wearing his father’s sash and locked horns with a succession of Chief Constables and political leaders.

“Nobody ever asked the victims what they wanted, nobody ever spoke to the likes of Michael Gallagher who lost his son in the Omagh bomb about what was needed. There’s a decent, decent man who has done so much behind the scenes, why isn’t he being used?”

Four years ago in partnership with Paul McIlwaine who lost his son David to UVF killers in 2000 he formed HELP, a victims support group, within weeks they were inundated with work, and it wasn’t just dealing with the past, victims are still being created every week in Northern Ireland.

In recent years has spent much of his time negotiating on behalf of young people under threat from paramilitary groups over allegations of drug dealing and anti-social behaviour – and the calls come 24 hours a day.

“I’ve been blindfolded and taken to meetings with armed men, I’ve met republican and loyalist paramilitary leaders on behalf of people under threat of being shot or put out of the country. It’s a role I’ve fallen into, but if I didn’t do it what would happen to these young people? I really worry about that now that I’m stepping back.”

Even as he speaks to the Sunday World this week he’s contacted by a young man north Belfast under threat of being shot by dissident republicans.

“I’ve made promises to certain people that I will see their cases through, but I have to draw a line. I’ve got 550 case files at home, thousands who have contacted me or HELP over the years, there are people in those files who would be dead today had we not intervened, who’s going to help them now?”

When funding for HELP was withdrawn in 2012, McCord knew the clock was running down. 

“I’ve been thinking about this for some time. I want to spend time with my grandchildren, I’d love to be able to do normal things, go for a walk, go out for dinner without someone heckling me or threatening me.”

Any regrets?

“After Raymond was killed I was approached by the UVF with a message from [UVF commander] Bunter Graham to see what they could to settle everything. I told them give me Young, Haddock, Moore and Bond one by one and put us in a locked room and we’ll see who comes out.

“Either I don’t come out or they don’t, either way it would be over. He refused, he could have saved us both a lot of hassle.”

The Russians are shifting drugs in Northern Ireland to fuel lucrative lifestyles

Organised crime gangs are set to muscle in on Ulster’s drug and extortion rackets.

The Sunday World has previously revealed how eastern European and Triad gangs already command a major slice of the action in Belfast, but it is understood that other foreign gangs already have their sights set on Northern Ireland.

One major gang dubbed The Russians control the drugs racket in Belfast, outmuscling the UVF to set up a series of brothels across the south of the city and take a stranglehold on the drugs trade.

Well placed sources have told us gang bosses are amazed at the drugs profits to be had in Belfast and have already beefed up their operation.

It is understood the gang operates at least six brothels but has been busy buying up vacant properties with the intention of expanding their sex empire.

Women are being trafficked regularly from eastern Europe and pressed into service in the sex industry. They are also being forced to courier drugs first into Dublin and then into Northern Ireland.

It is understood up to a dozen foreign nationals are now based in Belfast overseeing the criminal empire.

According to our source they have been taken aback at the success of their enterprise north of the border.

“They established themselves in Dublin first,” said our source.

“They had no real plan to move in on Belfast in any great number but they began to notice how many people were prepared to drive to Dublin from the north to buy their drugs got them thinking.”

The Russians have earned a reputation for the purity of their drugs.

“Dealers in Belfast are so greedy they were cutting their coke so much it was as little as two per cent pure, the Russians insist on 25 per cent purity – and they’re cheaper.”

Up to now they have restricted their operations to south Belfast and the city centre but the Sunday World can reveal they are looking to the north of the city and further afield with Fermanagh and Ballymena in their sights.

Ballymena has long had a reputation for being a major drugs hub.

And they will not be afraid to take on local paramilitaries just as they did on Sandy Row and the Donegall Road in Belfast where are now effectively working in partnership with the UVF.

The gang, which is heavily armed, moved into the Donegall Road area last year and immediately clashed with local paramilitary figures. One leading east European figure was lucky to escape with his life when an under-car booby trap fell from the underside of the vehicle as he drove off.

On another occasion a gang member narrowly avoided serious injury when a crossbow bolt was fired through the door of a house in the Village district.

The Russians set up an extensive drug dealing business and opened two brothels in the heart of the UVF controlled district

There have been numerous violent clashes with shots fired on a number of occasions before UVF commander Eddie ‘Onions’ Rainey and sidekick Colin ‘Meerkat’ Fulton called a truce and agreed to a sit down meeting.

In return for agreeing not interfere in their criminal activities, the Russians pay UVF a slice of the profits and keep them supplied with high grade cocaine.

The relationship is now so cosy the Russians even offered to “take out” three senior UVF figures who opposed the arrangement.

The Russians said they would use a hitman, based in Limerick, to travel north to assassinate three senior UVF figures opposed to the drugs trade.

richard.sullivan@nth.sundayworld.com

Alanna Casement who was impaled on her bicycle handlebars on Saturday

An 11-year-old girl nearly died on Staurday night after becoming impaled on her bicycle handlebars.

Collette Casement, mother of Alanna Casement spoke of how Alanna's thigh injury left her spouting blood like a fountain. 

She also praised Alanna's friends who acted quickly on order to save her life. 

The accident happened in Castlewellan Forest Park at the weekend, with paramedics airlifting Alanna to the Royal Victoria Hospital where she was treated after she severed a vital main vein.

 "A paramedic was there pretty quickly who wasn’t even working at time,” Colette told the Daily Mirror.

 

“The paramedics and the police were amazing but they said she had to be airlifted and she was at the [Royal Victoria Hospital] in seven minutes.”

She added: “There’s just so much to take in, but it seems that the fact it happened close to the caravans where our friends were looking after her that they were able to stem the blood flow.

“It’s not clear if she would have made it if she had to go in an ambulance which would have been more than half an hour.

“Apparently if she’d been away off around the lake things could have been very, very different."

Collette also thanked police officers whose quick action helped save Alanna's life. 

She said: "I can't thank those people enough. Thanks to them there has been a happy outcome. There is a bit of a way ahead for her in terms of recovery but she is doing very well. She is so very lucky." 

 Alanna, from Annacloy, near Ballynahinch, is recovering in hospital where she is in a stable condition.

A 32-year-old man has been shot in what has been described as an attack "by appointment", DUP MLA William Hay has said.

The man was shot in both legs in a play area in the Lincoln Courts area of the Waterside just after 11.30pm on Tuesday. 

He is recovering in hospital but his injuries are not life-threatening.

Hay said: "It almost mirrors what dissident republicans have been doing on the Cityside, when young people are almost being ordered to come to a particular area where the shooting takes place.

"This is the first time that we've had an incident of this nature in the Waterside area."

A man has been seriously injured after being seriously stabbed in Newry.

The 27-year-old man was stabbed in Carnagh Park just before 3am this morning.

A 57-year-old has been arrested on suspicion of attempted murder.

 It is understood that the he had also been stabbed in the leg and his injuries are not believed to be life threatening.

Kevin Murray

NHS whistleblower Kevin Murray has called for better protection for anyone lifting the lid on abuse and neglect in the Health Service.

The 44-year-old agency nurse lost his job after raising concerns about the alleged mistreatment of a brain injury patient who needed round the clock care and supervision.

He claims whistleblowers are faced with a stark choice – turn a blind eye or expose wrong doing and risk being hung out to dry. 

“My Professional Code of Conduct requires me to report such incidents ‘without delay’ which is what I did, in line with the Nursing and Midwifery Council's (NMC) guidelines.”

Following a long battle to have his complaint heard by managers, public bodies, MLAs and Ministers, Kevin lost his job with the A24 Group – an agency which supplies nursing staff to the Belfast Trust.

The complaints were never addressed and Kevin (pictured right) was taken off A24’s register.

“I still hold the burden of the allegations as I have never been given the opportunity to pass that burden on.”

 Now he is campaigning for a new Whistleblower’s Code of Practice to be made law and which offers protection to Health Service workers raising legitimate concerns about patient care.

He is currently taking legal action against the Belfast Trust.

His battle started in August 2010, when he first raised concerns about a patient under the care of the Belfast Trust.

Kevin says that between August 2010 and January 2013 he made 10 whistleblowing complaints to his employer and the Trust.

 “None of these 10 complaints were investigated correctly – some not at all,” he told the Sunday World.

 

 “The three main areas of concern that I identified were substandard care planning and documentation, misdiagnosis of the patient and protection of a vulnerable adult as per a court order being in place.”

Kevin took his complaint to his union, the Royal College of Nursing, where says he was advised by a steward that the RCN only “represent employment issues and they do not consider whistleblowing to be an employment issue.”

Kevin says he was advised to go straight to the media, which is not in line with the NMC’s recommendations.

Kevin says he met with the PSNI’s Vulnerable Adults Team who advised him that protection of the patient was “beyond our remit” under an arrangement with the Department of Health known as “joint protocols.” 

A spokesperson from the RCN referred us to the RQIA, saying: “In Northern Ireland, staff should refer to the Regulation and Quality Improvement Authority (RQIA) whistleblowing guidance.”

 The RQIA distanced themselves from Kevin’s employment issues altogether, saying: “The RQIA does not involve itself in employment matters between a whistleblower and their employee – the Public Interest Disclosure (NI) Order and associated employment legislation provides protection to individual whistleblowers”.

Four PSNI officers have been injured after colliding with a stolen car in County Londonderry.

The crash happened in the early hours of Friday morning in Maghera.

Prior to the crash, a Nissan Juke car was stolen from a house on the Racecourse Road.

Police later spotted the car on the Fallaghloon Road.

After giving chase, two police cars collided with the stolen vehicle.

The driver ran off before being caught and arrested. 

"The four police officers received minor injuries as a result of the incident," said a PSNI spokesperson.

"A male is currently in police custody."

The top coroner in Northern Ireland has said that 20 deaths from taking tablets similar to ecstasy is "principally a Northern Ireland problem."

John Lecky made the comment during an inquest into the death of Banbridge man Connor Cochrane, who died at the age of 21 after consuming pills containing  para-methyl-4-methylaminorex.

A toxicologist told the inquest that the only other country where the drug has been found was Hungary.

The drug is manufactured in order to resemble ecstasy tablets.

It has been known to come in the form of 'Speckled Cherries' or 'Green Rolexes' in Northern Ireland.

Those who fall victim to the chemical suffer from complete organ failure leading to death.

The flags erected on the island in Bessbrook

A 68-year-old man has died after attempting to swim a cross a lake to remove two tricolour flags which had been pitched in an island in Bessbrook.

It is understood that the tricolour flags had been placed on the island around two weeks ago.

Oswald 'Ossie' Bradley had attempted to swim to the island to remove the flags and replace them with a Union flag when he got into difficulty.

A teenage boy retrieved Mr Bradley from the lake shortly after 5pm and tried to resuscitate him.

He was then taken to Daisy Hill hospital in Newry where he was pronounced dead.

Mayor of Newry and Mourne Council, Sinn Fein's Daire Hughes, had previously asked for the flags to be removed. 

Ulster Unionist MLA Danny Kennedy said: "This is a very tragic outcome to controversies surrounding flags in this village.

 

"The entire Bessbrook community will join with me in showing our sympathy and support for the whole family circle.

 

"He was highly respected and liked within the Bessbrook community. I counted him as a personal friend and I am deeply upset by his untimely and tragic death."

A close friend of Mr Bradley, local Pastor Barrie Halliday, said Mr Bradley was "a very active member of the FAIR victims' group and he was deeply affected by the Kingsmills massacre and just took this as a real insult to the suffering of the Protestants that a tricolour would be raised."

Tracey Coulter

Ulster risks a lost generation unless government bans the sale of so-called ‘legal highs,’

This is the face of Belfast teenager Stephanie McKeag, a young girl hopelessly addicted to a powder she can buy perfectly legally in Belfast city centre for as little as £12.50 a bag.

Her every waking moment is spent on working out how she can get her next fix, she has sold her clothes, her mobile phone and other possessions so she can afford a bag of Magic Dragon – a green pouch of power which users smoke to get a hit.

Magic Dragon has reduced Stephanie from a pretty, bubbly, bright, cheeky teenager to a shrunken wreck of her former self.

She is a victim of an epidemic no one wants to stop.

Stephanie who has just turned 16, and her anxious mother have bravely agreed to let us publish her picture in a desperate attempt to highlight the hidden plague sucking the life out of our young people.

“Stephanie has been let down all her life,” said the teenager’s mother Tracey Coulter, “when she needed help it wasn’t there for her, it was only when she became hooked on these legal highs and started to get into trouble that people sat up and took notice.

“I’m just terrified it is too late.”

 Stephanie McKeag

Stephanie was only two when her grandfather, Tracey’s father, Jackie Coulter, was murdered in the loyalist feud in 2000. She subsequently lost her father to a drug overdose and she has spent her young life living in fear as loyalist paramilitaries waged a terror campaign against her family.

Their former home in the lower Shankill estate has been attacked on numerous occasions, her mother has been physically attacked, the family has received countless death threats, masked and armed men have smashed their way into their home.

“Is it any wonder Stephanie struggled,” said Tracey, “I pleaded for help but no one wanted to know, even before she started using these drugs I knew she was depressed and struggling to cope.”

It’s only in the last few months that she has been diagnosed as suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. By then she was a regular user and had been self harming for some time.

“Stephanie would disappear for days on end, all I could do was contact the police and hope they picked her up alive.”

 

Tracey and her kids now live outside Belfast, but Stephanie has continued to travel to Belfast where she runs with a pack of ‘feral’ youths taking drugs.

 

“I’ve watched as she has destroyed herself, my beautiful wee girl is gone. Her body has shrunk, she can barely communicate. She doesn’t lie about she does, she wants to stop but can’t, she says she doesn’t feel normal and just wants to get away from everything.

 

“When she’s on this stuff she’s just spaced out, gone, and then she sleeps.”

Magic Dragon gives users a 10-20 minute hit but is highly addictive with some people smoking as much as two packs per day. Users report a dramatic impact on their health including panic attacks, shaking, weakness, thirst, headaches intense nausea and vomiting. The skin changes colour with users reporting a grey sickly pallor and suffering fever, chills and intense sweating.

Food tastes bad and people suffer dramatic weight loss – yet this stuff is freely available in towns and cities across Northern Ireland.

“Stephanie turned to this stuff because she had nowhere else to go, I could see she was suffering from depression.”

Tracey revealed that following the death of her nephew from a drug related condition, Stephanie’s drug use hit alarming heights. She lost her place in school, her she spent her life drifting from one fix to the next.

It was at that stage a desperate Tracey went to court to have her daughter committed to a secure unit.

“I’d already lost my daughter,” she said, “she had assaulted me, she was aggressive, she was missing for days on end. I was terrified she was going to be found dead.” 

Tracey admitted she has even planned her daughter’s funeral.

“She hated me for trying to get her into a secure unit, and that was the hardest thing I have ever had to do in my life. I did it because I love her, I know I’m going to lose her if I don’t do something.”

Stephanie spent nine months in Lakewood secure unit in Bangor, even then it took six months for her to be diagnosed with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, but it was too little too late and as soon she was released she went back to her old ways.

And she continued to self harm. Two weeks ago she needed 32 staples to close self-inflicted wounds to her arms.

“What are we doing to our young people, these legal highs should not be sold, shops that sell them should be shut down. My daughter was vulnerable and the only ‘help’ she could get was by losing herself in drugs that she can buy over the counter for just over a tenner.”

Stephanie is currently remanded to a secure unit for the sake of her own health and safety as she faces an investigation into an alleged assault on a police officer.

“Stephanie and hundreds of other kids are lost, they walk around Belfast stoned out of their heads. They are vulnerable and at risk, anything could happen to her while she’s out of her head on that stuff.

“What is she prepared to do to get the money to pay for her drugs.

“Social Services told me it was a phase and that she would grow out of it, but she doesn’t have time to grow out of it.”

Courtney Cox poses with fan Raymond Harley

Life’s a beach for Friends star Courteney Cox as she casually relaxes with locals on the sand in Co. Donegal.

The 50-year-old multi-millionaire celebrity has been showing the world just how down-to-earth she is as she poses for photos and signs autographs for fans.

She’s been touring the north west on holiday after landing in Derry with her Snow Patrol fiancé Johnny McDaid.

The pair announced they were getting married last month.

It’s been claimed after meeting her future in-laws for the time Cox, who famously played Monica in hit show Friends, was on the hunt for a wedding venue.

Cox was pictured on the stunning Shroove beach on the tip of the north west coast of the Inishowen Peninsula.

The small but pretty beach is close to Moville and Greencastle.

Sources say Johnny, who’s 38 and plays guitar, wanted to show Courteney his favourite local haunts.

“Johnny took Courteney for a drive up the coast to Moville and then on out to Shroove beach,” said a pal.

“Johnny used to go there a lot when he was younger with his mates. She must have brought the sun with her because I don’t think there were too many days Johnny was on Shroove beach in weather like that!”

The loved-up pair arrived back in Derry on Wednesday – on a direct Ryanair flight from London.

And immediately the ‘Cougar Town’ star set about winning the hearts of the locals – posing for pictures and chatting with fans.

“Courteney has been amazing,” said a pal. “A lot of celebrities would have arrived on a private jet or in a helicopter but these guys arrived on a simple Ryanair flight like everyone else.

“There’s no airs or graces about her – she loves Johnny and wanted to impress. And she certainly has done that.”

There was speculation the pair have been scouting out possible wedding venues but we understand the couple are planning to tie-the-knot elsewhere.

However should they decide to get married here there would be no shortage of venues in the north west.

Donegal, especially is packed with quality hotels with the Redcastle Hotel in Moville and the Ballyliffin Lodge Hotel both within 30 minutes’ drive of Derry.

After arriving in Northern Ireland City of Derry Airport tweeted a picture of the actress with her arms around the two staff members.

The photograph was accompanied by the caption: “CoDA was delighted to welcome Courteney Cox following her Ryanair flight from @STN_Airport #friends.”

 

In June, the couple posted an announcement simultaneously on their individual Twitter accounts, using the same picture and the captions: “I’m engaged to him” and “I’m engaged to her”.

Cox was spotted wearing a diamond ring on her engagement finger at the premiere of Just Before I Go.

The pair met last year through mutual friend Ed Sheeran. This week Sheeran spoke about playing ‘cupid’ for the couple one night at a party.

“I go out a lot — to meet people, hang out and bring friends to house parties,” said Sheeran.

“This was one of those nights, and I brought Johnny along with me and introduced them. At the end of the night I went home and he didn’t. That was it.”

One of the vehicles damaged in the attack

The PNSI have said that homes and vehicles attacked in Belfast last night in a spate of 'hate crimes' are linked.

On the corner of Elmdale Street and Bately Street, racist graffiti reading 'Romanians out' was daubed on a gable wall.

Windows on two houses on Cobham Street and Bloomfield Avenue were smashed and one had paint thrown over it. 

In Rosebury Street and Ravenscroft Street, two cars were also vandalised. 

All of the attacks happened shortly before 11pm on Monday night said police. 

PSNI Superintendent Mark McEwan said: "There was a group of between 10 to 15 people involved - some of them masked.

 

"There was clearly a racial motivation and obviously they set out to intimidate and scare people.

 

"Many of the homes attacked had young children inside.

"There was a level of orchestration, although we can't say at this time if there is a particular group involved."

Police have asked anyone with any information to contact them on their non-emergency number, 101.  

Roy McAuley

Bogus anti-drug vigilante Roy McAuley is on a dissident republican death list.

Last month the Sunday World unmasked murder suspect McAuley as the leader of a criminal gang stalking the streets of north Belfast.

The self-styled vigilante group Action Against Drugs (AAD) was exposed as a sham.

In reality it is a grubby money making operation scamming thousands of pounds from drug dealers.

Under pain of death dealers are forced to hand over a slice of their profits –in return they are allowed to continue trading.

The group first surfaced in the New Lodge area of the city when they staged a dramatic show of strength in which McAuley was pictured in a boiler suit and balaclava brandishing a handgun. 

The gang is believed to be made up of disgruntled dissident republicans and now McAuley is spreading his ‘operation’ to west Belfast. 

The Sunday World understands a close associate has been placed in charge of the group in the New Lodge while he actively recruits in the west.

He is specifically targeting members of terror group Oglaigh na hEireann. The dissident group has responded by issuing a death threat.

He has already recruited one time leading OnH figure Tony Rooney, who defected to AAD after his release from prison for his part in a punishment attack because he was disillusioned with the direction taken by OnH chief Carl Reilly.

McAuley himself is a murder suspect, arrested an questioned in relation to the murder of low level drugs dealer Danny McKay in Newtownabbey 18 months ago.

His activities have also brought him into conflict with the INLA who retaliated to a pipe bomb attack on one of their members by abducting a senior AAD figure and holding him for a number of days.

“McAuley is a dead man walking,” said our source. “He has gone out of his way to target OnH members and he has ruffled feathers.”

He said AAD is now being labelled the ‘modern day IPLO’ a republican splinter group formed in 1986 by disaffected members of the INLA.

The organisation became mired in criminality and drug dealing and is blamed for first introducing Ecstasy to republican districts. Members were also accused of the prolonged gang rape of a woman in Divis Flats in 1990.

A brutal internal war erupted when the IPLO split into two rival factions led by Belfast men Sammy Ward and Jimmy Brown murdered in the feud.

The IRA forced the IPLO into disbandment in 1992 when they launched a “night of the long knives” 

purge in which Ward was murdered. The OnH has now vowed to deliver a similar fate to AAD.

A number of known criminals have signed up to McAuley’s mob in west Belfast but tensions are rising sharply.

“There will be blood spilled over this, OnH may be depleted but if they want to preserve what little credibility they still have they will have to move against McAuley.

 

“The alternative is that McAuley will eventually control the drugs trade in parts of north and west Belfast. Like the IPLO back in the day, his organisation has no republican credentials, they are just criminals.

 

“Their only interest is money.”

He said the only drug dealers forced out of business will be those who refuse to pay up.

Republican sources have told us the OnH now regard McAuley as the biggest threat to them, they have already lost members to AAD and they have been left severely depleted with disgruntled members turning their backs on the organisation because of ineffective leadership.

The Sunday World understands AAD is already compiling a dossier of the most prolific dealers in the west.

“They will be targeted, it's all about easy money.”

Sources have said the writing may already be on the wall for OnH.

“They are so weak it is unlikely they have the men with the expertise to take McAuley on, he holds all the aces and has already recruited some seriously heavy hitters.”

McAuley claimed his group was dedicated to eradicating the drug problem in north Belfast. In truth his only intention was to control the dealers and has already set up a lucrative network of people involved in the trade who supply him with information on rival dealers.

He has surrounded himself with crooks with a long history of dealing in counterfeit goods, and robbery.

“All these groups (AAD, OnH, INLA) are competing with each other and will go to any lengths to stay one step ahead of the competition. It's all about making money and nothing to do with any republican ethos.”

Dee Coleman

Shankill drug dealer Dee Coleman is facing the chop.

The Lower Shankill pill popper has fallen foul of his UFF bosses who have come under pressure to rein him in as his drug dealing and bully boy behaviour threaten to spiral out of control.

The last straw is said to have been the all-night rave Coleman organised as the eleventh night bonfire was set alight in the estate.

Residents were furious that loud music was pumped across the Lower Shankill from 11pm to seven o’clock on the morning of the Twelfth.

Sources have told us Coleman was openly selling drugs to young people.

Now UDA bosses are set to move against him after coming under sustained pressure from furious residents. 

West Belfast brigadier Matt Kincaid has resisted calls to sanction Coleman and C Company boss Mo Courtney but has agreed to convene a ‘disciplinary’ meeting before the end of the month to consider Coleman’s position.

 

Courtney is believed to be untouchable but despite staying loyal to drug dealing sidekick Coleman will not stand in Kincaid’s way if he is stood down.

Coleman and killer Courtney have flooded the lower Shankill with drugs, for the last 18 months the pair have been making a fortune flogging Ecstasy, blues, mephodrone and cocaine.

Despite public statements that the organisation does not condone drug dealing, Kincaid gets a slice of the profits and in return he has turned a blind eye as Coleman and Courtney racked up their drug dealing operation.

Residents, backed by a number of UDA veterans approached Kincaid was far back as April last year, a few months after Courtney took over as C Company commander from Ebby Irvine who was drummed out in a row over missing money.

Kincaid refused to move against the pair.

 Matt Kincaid 

It is understood Courtney threatened to go to the police over Kincaid’s alleged involved in the shooting dead of Alan ‘Bucky’ McCullough in 2006 should he try to move against him.

Johnny Adair ally McCullough was persuaded to return to Northern Ireland after fleeing in the face of UDA purge of Adair supporters, only to be taken away on his return by Courtney, shot and buried in a shallow grave on the outskirts of Belfast.

Kincaid is alleged to sanctioned the killing.

The drug trade continued to grow and it is believed the pair were selling E-type drug known as Green Rolex which was responsible for a number of deaths across the Province last year.

During last year’s eleventh night celebrations a teenage girl was sexually assaulted during a party on the lower Shankill.

The 14-year-old girl was subjected to the alleged attack close to the site of a bonfire party organised by killer Courtney and former jailbird Coleman.

In a separate incident Courtney and fellow UDA thug 

Sam Hinton stood and watched as Coleman battered another teenage girl in a row over drink. 

A crazed Coleman is said to have snapped when it emerged the girl had not bought her drink from him.

The pair were openly selling alcohol to underage drinks and the Sunday World also understands they were selling the green ‘rolex’ pills 

Courtney is a hate figure, but is rarely seen in the area, leaving it to trusted lieutenant Coleman to oversee the drugs trade.

Comeback kid Courtney has been accused of dragging the area back to the past, which is exactly what he wants.

 Mo Courtney 

He’s made it clear that he wants to go back to the ‘gold old days’ when loyalists could make a fortune from drugs. 

Residents continued to warn Kincaid that teen beater Coleman – cruelly nicknamed Squity – was out of control. Their fears were confirmed last August when he brutally assaulted the 57-year-old mother of anti-drugs campaigner Tracey Coulter.

Big man Coleman lifted his fists to 57-year-old Agnes Coulter knocking the grandmother out cold after a verbal spat in front of dozens of witnesses on the Shankill Road.

 

Agnes told the Sunday World how a verbal spat turned nasty after she challenged him over the death of her nephew Neil Orr. 

The 24-year-old died in his sleep last July after battling an addiction to prescription drugs which he bought from women Coleman and Courtney.

“We had words and then he punched me in the face,” Agnes (left) told the Sunday World yesterday.

He then pushed her and when her head bounced off the pavement she blacked out.

“He’s a big man, with no b***s,” she said, “what sort of man lifts his fists to a 57- year-old woman. I was no match for him.”

Agnes had been in the Diamond Jubilee bar on the Lower Shankill when she encountered UDA Provost Marshall Coleman.

“He said my daughter (Tracey) was a tramp and when I answered him he hit me.”

Gutless woman beater Coleman ran away as worried onlookers called an ambulance.

The assault was witnessed by Courtney and Shankill Road ‘community worker’ dopey Denis Cunningham. All fled.

Coleman, who was released from prison in 2012 is hopelessly addicted to cocaine, sources have told us he is regularly ‘off his head’.

He is set to be called before a disciplinary meeting in the coming days and is likely to be ordered to clean up his act or be drummed out of the organisation. 

Loyalist sources have told us Kincaid is under intense pressure not to give him another chance and to stand him down.

A police patrol has come under gun attack in Derry

The incident happened in the early hours of Tuesday morning in the Bogside area of the city.

The patrol was driving along Westland Street when a gunman opened fire, hitting the car twice.

PSNI superintendent Garry Eaton said: "It is fortunate that we are not speaking about deaths or injuries today. Members of the crew were kept safe by protective equipment on the vehicle, however if the shots had missed, then anyone walking or standing on the street could have been hit.

 

"The officers were carrying out normal patrolling to keep the community safe.

 

"Those who organised and carried out the attack were totally reckless and showed total disregard for the lives of people in that community.

 

 "Despite this incident; we remain committed to providing the people of Derry with the type of positive and dedicated policing that they ask and expect of us."

Sinn Féin MLA said: "This gun attack in a built up area such as the Bogside was totally reckless.

"Westland Street is a busy thoroughfare and this attack put the lives of many people at risk.

"Thankfully no one was injured in this incident but we could have been faced with a tragedy."

Nicola McNamee and her daughter Melissa Rose

A County Fermanagh woman has won over £20,000 from a former employer after she was sacked for becoming pregnant.

Millie McWilliams and Ken Neely, who own the Melting Moments bakery in Enniskillen, were told to pay out £23,000 to Nicola McNamee by an industrial tribunal.

The tribunal said that Ms McNamee had been a "more reliable witness than the pair."

The tribunal said that Mr Neely and Ms McWilliams' evidence "frequently was contradictory ans Mr Neely's evidence, at times, bordered on the incoherent."

Ms McNamee said: "Around the end of March I found out I was pregnant and I spoke to one of the owners at the start of April and told her about it. She suggested that I think about whether it was best for me to continue working or if I'd be better off leaving.

"I was happy to work and I was devastated when I was dismissed a week later.

"I am glad the tribunal has found in my favour and now I just want to get on with my life with my little daughter."

Peter Robinson

DUP insiders are ‘furious’ that official party sources tried to dump our report of a fortnight ago that Peter Robinson is on the run – from within his own party ranks.

On our front page on July 13 we reported that veteran DUP politicians intend to get rid of Robbo by September. 

The DUP propaganda machine went into full swing over the next 48 hours. 

The BBC ran reports from party PR apparatchiks and Robinson lackeys rubbishing our insider information. 

But this week, we have again been approached by sources within the DUP. 

And they are ADAMANT – as our front page reported a fortnight ago – that Robinson will go as early as next September. 

 

Indeed we were told just yesterday that another leading DUP politician, who once held a ministerial portfolio at Stormont, is one of the main men behind the DUP party putsch. 

We had originally reported that the main thrust for Peter getting the push was being orchestrated both in the House of Commons and the House of Lords at Westminster. 

Now we can reveal that the heart of the plot is much closer to home – at Stormont. 

The ex-minister is part of a posse who want no more scandals to rock the DUP which was founded and once run with an iron Red Hand by deposed theocrat the Rev. Ian Paisley, who married both the church and politics so successfully.

But DUP ‘suits’ dumped the clerical dog collar, and wrote RIP over the career of the 82-year-old party founder. 

There is still rancour in DUP ranks about the way that headline-hitting and brutal political coup was perpetrated. 

Some of the ‘old brigade’ of Paisley stalwarts are still simmering about that. 

But it is the growing scroll of scandal – homophobia, Iris Robinson’s explicit sex affair with teenage lover Kirk McCambley, and Peter Robinson’s most recent defence of racist Pastor Jack McConnell – plus the explosive intenal Stormont report on the Robinsons which is still censored, which has prompted the coup on the party leader. 

The ‘suits’ – prime among them Nigel Dodds, whom Baroness Eileen Paisley infamously labelled ‘a cheeky sod’ on the eye-opening and infamous Eamon Mallie TV documentary exposing the downfall of the Paisley party dynasty – have mocked the original Sunday World story with the ‘lame duck’ label being thrown around. 

Mr Dodds should remember how his family nest has been feathered through politics...with him as a Westminster MP and his wife Diane holding down a lucrative post as an MEP in Brussels. 

And we repeat what we reported in our original July 13 report. 

WHEN, not IF, Robinson goes, Nigel Dodds will be a front-runner for the post of DUP party leader. The DUP can’t afford to lose him at the House of Commons with another hung Parliament over in London on the horizon after the next General Election. 

 

And either Arlene Arkinson or Sammy Wilson will be parachuted into the post of First Minister at Stormont even if that means Sammy resigning his seat at Westminster, but handing it over to another pair of ‘safe’ DUP hands. 

Also, we can reveal that Sinn Fein are not going to sign up to the Stormont Bill on welfare reform until they find out what is really happening in DUP ranks. 

This newspaper first revealed that as part of the so-called ‘graduated response’ to the impasse over the Ardoyne Twelfth Orange parade part of that plan would be for the DUP to pull out of the Policing Board, and even the Assembly and Executive at Stormont. 

Unionist politicians met Ulster Secretary of State Teresa Villiers in a summit at Stormont this week wooing her to set up a Commission to rule on the Ardoyne ‘No-Go’ Orange Parades Commission embargo. 

Peter Robinson made a big PR play after that but Sinn Fein, and Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness in particular, dissed that as a ‘one-sided’ non-runner further exacerbating the growing gap between him and Robinson as First Minister. 

Now, a Stormont insider has told us that Sinn Fein will ‘sign up to nothing at Stormont’, until they see if the DUP still are members of, and support, ‘the democratically elected and appointed institutions’.

We understand the deadline for that has been set by Sinn Fein for this September – the same ‘high noon’ deadline the DUP coup plotters have already set for the departure of Peter Robinson. 

And that deadline will also prove whether the DUP ‘suits’, like Nigel Dodds, are really ‘lame duck’ Robinson supporters or whether they are setting up their current DUP party leader for another ‘duck shoot’, just like the ‘suits’ did with their Party founder, the Rev. Ian Paisley. 

Meanwhile, another crisis is hitting the DUP at its highest level.

Both nationalist and other unionist MLAs are still calling for Social Development Minister Nelson McCausland to resign.

The quit call came earlier this week after a high-powered Stormont Committee found he had intentionally misled MLAs. 

Minister McCausland accepted that he ‘inadvertently (and) unintentionally misinformed’ MLAs . He originally claimed he held a meeting with with a glazing association. In fact, it was with the Co. Armagh glazing firm Turkington, which has been a donor to the DUP. 

Nelson has tried to turn a blind eye to calls for his resignation, labelling the Committee conclusions ‘flawed’ and ‘one-sided’.

But TUV boss Jim Allister, who sits on the Committee, said Mr McCausland’s credibility was ‘shot through’ and that he should go. 

The resignation from both sides at Stormont still hangs over Minister McCausland this weekend.