'˜Paramilitaries are morons who feed vicious cycle'

Strand Road issued a hard-hitting statement while promoting the PSNI’s ‘Ending the Harm’ TV campaign which features a dramatisation of a so-called ‘shooting-by-appointment’.

One officer remarked that there were other ways of dealing with criminal offending and noted victims of paramilitary attack have often had little chance in life.

“I once went to a house full of drunks with two toddlers upstairs with nappies down to their ankles and covered in their own faeces,” the officer stated.

“They were lying on a dirty mattress with no sheets or blanket. I seized those children and kept them till Social Services could sort something out.

Children like that grow up and everyone says ‘poor wee thing s/he doesn’t have a chance’.”

The officer observed how these children grow up with little stability and by their teens are often involved in anti-social behaviour and thus attract the interest of paramilitary groups. Community Resolution Notices, Youth Engagement Clinics and education were the best ways of rehabiliting ‘young offenders’, the officer said.

“Or they get shot; drain NHS, get more into drink and drugs, go on the dole, grow up and have kids who get taken off them and the cycle begins again,” the officer said.

The officer described those behind such attacks as “moronic eejits.”