Coleraine attack victim speaks out
The man who was attacked for a second time in Coleraine has made an emotional plea to those responsible.
Damien Fleming, 46, was assaulted by a loyalist mob and left for dead near his home, after disturbances flared between Rangers and Celtic fans in May.
His friend community worker Kevin McDaid, 49, was killed just feet away.
On Wednesday night he was assaulted again on his way home in the Heights area at around 11.30pm when two men got out of a car and brutally beat him.
“I was getting back flashes to the past one…and I thought this is my turn now,” he told UTV.
“They shouted sectarian abuse at me.”
“My nose is broken I was spitting up blood all day yesterday… Don’t know what to do.”
“I can’t handle it anymore, I’m too afraid to stay here. I just want them to leave me alone,” he added.
“I’m very nervous; I need to have people around me all the time.”
‘Stain’
Local politicians have condemned the latest attack.
“Nobody deserves the likes of this, it is absolutely incredible that people would wait for him and then attack him in such a way, leave him traumatised and injured”, Sinn Fein Councillor Billy Leonard said.
“It is absolutely sick and yet another stain on Coleraine,” he added.
“Unfortunately there are some elements who want to increase the tensions but that is the problem that has to be resolved”, East Londonderry DUP MP Gregory Campbell said.
“The attack on Mr Fleming and on everyone one else has to be condemned, condemnation itself is not enough we need the perpetrators put behind bars of all the attacks in The Heights and elsewhere”, he added.
Mr Fleming was discharged from hospital last month.
On Tuesday, the High Court heard that more than 20 people were under death threat following the killing of Kevin McDaid.
Half of those warned by police are witnesses, while the rest include men suspected of involvement in the attack in Coleraine, prosecutors revealed.
Eleven people have been charged in connection with Mr McDaid’s murder and Mr Fleming’s attempted murder.
Police have confirmed they are treating the incident at Pate’s Lane as sectarian.
They have urged witnesses to contact them.
