Residents angry at ‘Relief of Derry’ on doorstep
A marcher urinates just outside the pensioner's front door.
The family of a Waterside pensioner have spoken of their distress at the “terrible conditions” their mother and her neighbours are forced to endure each August 12.
The daughter of the woman, who in her late 70s, said her mother and her neighbours become “prisoners in their own homes” during the annual celebrations and have to witness marchers and spectators using their gardens and laneways as urinals.
“The area in which she (the pensioner) lives is mostly pensioners,” the woman’s daughter said. She added that things have become progressively worse over the last few years - so much so that she instructed her mother to take pictures of the marchers and their actions.
Those pictures feature a number of marchers urinating in a laneway and against garden walls in The Triangle.
The woman further claims that her mother’s 86 year-old neighbour was forced to clean up human excrement from her garden after two female spectators defecated on her lawn.
She said: “The seriousness of these offences is being scoffed at by the police on duty.
“My mother asked a policeman for help to move these people on and was told by him, ‘Sorry, I cannot leave this spot unless I am instructed or given orders to’.
“Several other pensioners also complained to the PSNI who were on duty throughout the day, but again nothing was done to prevent it from happening.”
The woman said she offers to take her mother away for the day each year but her mother feels she cannot leave her home as she fears she will come home to a bigger mess.
“All roads in and out of her area are closed from early morning and she has difficulty walking so basically she is a prisoner in her own home for an entire day,” the woman said.
The Journal also received calls from residents of Simpson’s Brae, one of whom said she witnessed “at least 100” marchers using the gable end of a nearby house as a urinal.
“It comes down to simple respect for the people of Derry and - I didn’t see much of that about on Saturday,” the second caller said.
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Weather for Derry
Monday 20 May 2013
Today
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Temperature: 9 C to 13 C
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