Loyalist Feud Victim's Dad Beaten

The father of a Londonderry man shot dead in a loyalist feud four years ago has been beaten by a gang of men.

It is thought that the assault - which left him in hospital for the past 10 days - may be linked to his son's death.

Gilbert Thompson suffered a broken cheek, a torn spleen, eye injuries, fractures to his back and bruising all over his body in the attack near his home in Derry's Waterside.

Mr Thompson was attacked as he walked through the Waterside almost two weeks ago, and has been in hospital ever since.

He has been outspoken in his condemnation of his son's killers.

Last year, two men were sentenced to seven years in jail for their part in the 2004 murder of his son Darren Thompson.

The victim suffered a torn spleen and fractures to his cheek, nose and back and has since said he believed it was not a random attack.

"I believe I was singled out," he said. "The way it was done in daylight, it really scared me.

"The wife is absolutely devastated at what happened to me. We'll never get over what happened to our son, but this here, it's absolutely devasted her for no reason whatsoever," he said.

THE father of UVF murder victim Raymond McCord Jnr has recalled the agony of the moment when he found out his son was dead in a new book to be published this week.

Another loyalist victim's father, Raymond McCord from Newtownabbey, has just published a book, Justice for Raymond, which gives a moving and heartfelt account of the day police officers called at his home to tell him his son had been killed and his body dumped in a quarry in Newtownabbey.

The book details Mr McCord's own investigations into the murky paramilitary underworld which began to yield answers to his question of who was responsible for his son's murder - and has led to a major NI Police Ombudsman's office investigation into the RUC's use of UVF members as informers.

See: McCord Killers Taken To Book

(BMcC)