Teenagers 'at centre of sectarian attacks': Orde
Young teenagers are increasingly at the centre of sectarian disturbances and attacks in the North, Chief Constable Hugh Orde said today.
During a meeting with the Northern Ireland Policing Board in Ballymena, Co Antrim, Orde said the response to recent sectarian violence was not just simply an issue for the police.
“Much of the disorder on the small number of parades where disorder occurred we saw was being perpetrated by people of a very young age,” he said.
“In other words what we have been seeing is a trend across a number of events where police officers or communities are attacked, where very young people are engaged in criminal activity.
“This, I think, makes it a problem which is far wider and far more complicated than a simple policing solution.”
Orde was commenting following attacks on two Catholic primary schools in Ballymena in recent days.
There has also been a catalogue of sectarian attacks in Belfast and North Antrim in recent weeks as well as disturbances around parade.
At today’s public meeting of the policing board, Ballymena district commander Chief Superintendent Terry Shevlin revealed that police had identified a problem with sectarian violence as far back as March in the area.
His officers recorded 42 significant attacks in their area – 28 of them on Catholic targets and 14 on Protestant.
Of these 18 occurred during a four week period in the run up to a controversial republican parade in Ballymena.
The village of Ahoghill had 15 incidents.
The police, he said, had deployed high visibility patrols and had received tactical support to combat the violence.
They had also increased community beat officers on the ground, engaged in covert operations, and resorted to technical operations such as using police cameras and equipment, CCTV, intelligence gathering and forensics to reduce the violence.
He said that in the fortnight between August 15 and 30, before the two recent attacks on Catholic primary schools in Ballymena, there had been only one significant attack on a Catholic property in Ahoghill and one attack on a Protestant property in north Ballymena.
In addition to dealing with the problem he had also had to contend with tensions around parades, public disorder in the Dunclug area of Ballymena, the loyalist feud, and using police resources to keep rival nationalist and loyalist youths apart.
