4 days ago
‘While I was protecting the front windows, they were kicking the back gate': Distress in Ballymena after night of violence
Shards of glass are scattered in the back room of Anita O'Shea's Ballymena home close to her granddaughter's toy kitchen and a tortoise enclosure.
It is less than 24 hours since her window was smashed during a night of violent disorder in the Co Antrim town in what police have described as 'racist thuggery, pure and simple'.
Fifteen officers were injured with some requiring hospital treatment, said the PSNI.
O'Shea has lived in the first row of houses at Clonavan Terrace for 28 years. She says she challenged masked men when they attempted to throw a brick through her living room window on Monday evening.
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'Didn't stop me from getting hit, though. While I was protecting the front windows, they were kicking the back gate and put the side window in,' she says.
O'Shea is disabled and walks with a crutch. Her adopted boxer dog, Floyd, lies at her feet.
'I raised three kids here; this is my family home where my memories are. I'm very angry.'
It is late afternoon on Tuesday and police officers are gathering outside O'Shea's next-door neighbour's home. Workmen boarding up windows ask her if she is sure 'no one is in' before they secure the home.
More police are visible further down the street where an immigrant family is packing up a car.
Word filters through that more trouble is expected on Tuesday evening. The atmosphere is tense and the only sound is drilling and hammering as workers board up five other homes targeted.
The air reeks of burning smoke.
'We are scared for our lives,' says Dana Bus from Romania, who has lived in the area for nine years and works in a local supermarket.
Blinking away tears while standing on her doorstep, she has packed her overnight bag as she and her husband plan to stay with a friend.
Dana Bus from Romania who has lived on Clonavon Terrace in Ballymena for nine years. Photograph: Seanín Graham
'I stayed away last night as well. We left at 7pm because of the threats on social media. We have a camera on our doorbell and we could see what was happening. I can't even describe it; it was horrific,' she says.
'When we came back at 6am, it was like something you would see after a war.'
On Monday evening, hundreds of people attended a peaceful protest in the town over an alleged sexual assault over the weekend. Two 14-year-old boys appeared in court earlier that day charged with attempted rape. The charges were read to the teenagers by a Romanian interpreter.
O'Shea was among those who attended the protest and when she tried to get back to her home at 10pm, she was warned by police it was not safe. Blockades were at either end of Clonavan Terrace as masked men began lobbing bricks through windows.
'They took a tow bar from a broken speedboat that was parked in another street and used it to smash windows along the row,' she says.
'I told them to stop … but the red mist was up and they didn't hear a thing.'
She begged the attackers to leave her neighbours, a Romanian family, alone, telling them 'there are babies in that house'.
'But they came along and put the windows in and kicked the door in. Then tried to light the curtains. I had thought my neighbours were away – I hadn't heard them all day – but they were all hiding upstairs.
'I saw the woman down the street this morning and I gave her a hug … it's to start all over again tonight."
Damaged property at Clonavon Terrace, Ballymena, after a protest over an alleged sexual assault in the Co Antrim town. Photograph: Jonathan McCambridge/PA
At the other end of the street, Dana Bass points to her next door neighbour's home, where the front windows are also boarded up.
'He is Bulgarian and the nicest man. He was in the street just to see what was happening. He went into his house and just heard, 'boom', and all the windows came in. There was one child in the house who is 10. He was really scared.'
Another neighbour, who is from Ballymena, comes up to ask if Bass is okay.
'She is a good neighbour,' he says.
Before she leaves for the evening, Bass opens a cellophane bag filled with Union Jack flag bunting; she is putting it inside her front window in the hope it will 'keep her safe'.
'I just bought a flag. We hope when they see a flag that we won't be attacked.'
Damage at Clonavon Terrace, Ballymena. Photograph: Jonathan McCambridge/PA
At the top end of the street, O'Shea is doing the same thing. An enormous Red Hand of Ulster flag has just gone up inside the bay window of her living room.
'First time in my life I've put a flag up,' she says.
'I'm originally from Liverpool and I put the flag up because my saying to these people last night, 'I'm British, leave me alone', wasn't' enough. But I'm staying here … this is my home.'
