Ian Price, 13-year-old victim of "punishment" attack
There has been more condemnation of the paramilitary-style attack on saturday night in Newtownards in which a 13-year-old boy was badly injured. Ian Price is now in hospital with broken arms, broken fingers, cuts and bruising. He was beaten by four men with baseball bats who attacked him while he was playing on Saturday night and was told to get out of the North within 24 hours. A loyalist paramilitary group is being blamed for the attack.
The North's Security Minister Adam Ingram described those responsible as thugs and said they had stooped to a new low by attacking a teenaged boy. He said such attacks had no place in a civilised society. Kieran McCarthy of the Alliance Party has called for more police to be drafted in to the Strangford area. He said no child deserved such treatment as had been meted out to Ian Price. Speaking at Stormont today the Northern Secretary Dr Mo Mowlam described the attack on the teenager as "barbaric".
