DUP Questioned Over Email Connected To Intimidation

The DUP have been questioned after it was discovered one of their MLA's emailed the Housing Executive (HE) enquiring about a property in north Belfast "a week before it became empty".

In a report by the Irish News, it is claimed that DUP MLA William Humphrey constituency office contacted the HE on behalf of a member of a "prominent loyalist family" about a specific address on Ballysillian Avenue.

The email is claimed to have said that the woman was interested in the property and "believed that it was soon to become vacant".

A week later the tenants of the house "were forced to flee their home after being subjected to intimidation".

It is understood that the email is now with police and is part of an ongoing investigation into a number of incidents of intimidation in the area.

Commenting on the report, Sinn Féin North Belfast MLA Carál Ní Chuilín has called on the DUP to explain its involvement in the incident.

The party's Housing spokesperson said: "Recently there has been a spate of sectarian attacks in north Belfast aimed at forcing Catholic families out of their home.

"A DUP Councillor stood outside the property of one of the victims of these attacks and claimed it was not sectarian. Sectarian graffiti was daubed on the house behind him.

"We have since learned that the DUP had advance knowledge that a property in Ballysillan Avenue, which was attacked, would become vacant.

"The DUP must explain how they knew it would become vacant and stop denying that there is a sectarian element to the attacks."

(MH/CM)