Councillor’s backer filmed shooting and throwing bomb at police…
THE helicopter surveillance footage below (with commentary in this BBC clip) shows loyalist terrorist John Main throwing a pipe bomb at police and firing a handgun at officers during the UDA’s riot in September 2005 when the Whiterock Orange parade was re-routed. Main was jailed for a total of 17 years yesterday for attempting to murder police, while his neighbour Colin Harbinson was given 10 years for possessing firearms and ammunition with intent to endanger life. Four months before he tried to slaughter the cops, Main had nominated independent unionist councillor Frank McCoubrey to contest the local elections – as first revealed on Slugger. The rioting was just two years ago, the UDA has said it’s keeping its guns – and yet the DUP and Sinn Fein are involved in political collusion to nobble the Minister who has refused to fund a UDA-linked project.
I have to say, Gonzo, that this fairly crude attempt to use video-graphics and subjective prose description (” Four months before he tried to slaughter the cops,”) to convince that the coalition executive were ganging up on a ‘Mr Deedes Goes To Washington’ type honest politician in the person of Margaret Ritchie, of which I was almost convinced myself, has instead made me rethink the issue.
The sentences imposed on Main and his Gunga Din were fairly stringent in the currency of recent times and I suspect are a deliberate indication of no-nonsense inflation of sentencing per encourager les autres which will more concentrate the mindset towards “Decommisioning” than the fear of loss of any potential cream-off from misuse of public funds.
Now I am beginning to consider whether or not, if a wiser strategy is being employed, the joint DUP/SF insistence on tiresome legality on funding issues coupled with a new “fuck you” prosecution and robust sentencing policy towards loyalist bang-bang merchants might not be best and that Ms Ritchie, knowing of this policy and its potential for success might not have chosen a “Jeanne d’Arc” position simply for populist imagery .
If such thoughts are unworthy, Gonzo, please remember that it was your above play with imagery that inspired them.
Your faith in the courts is touching.
Possibly, Gonzo. But not by faith alone…in this case crude empirical observation does the trick. No need for subjectively interpretive helicopter camera shots either. Recorded judgements suffice.
jail all the fuckers that start/engage in violence-then the rest of us can have a life
Thank you, Gonzo, for this contribution.
Despite what Rory and others may believe…
… looks remarkably like attempts to “slaughter the cops” to me. I’m with veritas on this.
The very point I was making, Dawkins, is that there has been a legal response in line with the aspirations of Veritas and “the fuckers” have been jailed in this instance and for quite long stretches.
If we see more of this and yet allow funding to deprived areas where these fellows find their harbour then I am suggesting that this may be a better strategy than penalising the whole community because of the thugs in their midst.
Ritchie’s strategy may only further alienate the communities and help entrench the bully boys. A double edged strategy of winning hearts and minds among the citizenry combined with robust application of law against the exploiters within the community may be a better way to go.
Get your facts right, Rory. Ritchie intends re-distributing all of the CTI money to bona-fide projects in loyalist areas.All that ‘hearts and minds’ shite you’re spouting is wishy-washy liberal claptrap. The CTI money was being used to pay off drug-dealing gangsters-end of story
Rory,
Come, come. You accused Gonzo of crude and subjective blogging. I say his observations are objective.
Though as has been pointed out Ritchie’s legal advice seems to suggest redistributing the money on the basis of community identity could be illegal and all current projects funded on an identity basis may be on dodgy legal ground.
Very much watch this space on the sectarian funding of any PUL project.
Which advice seems sound, Frank. Funds intended to alleviate deprivation should be awarded on the basis of need and not on any crude head count of supposed community loyalties.
The corollary then also applies in that funds should neither be denied to a deprived area by virtue of those same supposed loyalties.
Deal with the thugs with all the rigour that is compatible with law and deal with deprivation as need demands. The community must not be held hostage by governent agencies to force them to deal with the very bodies that hold them in fear particularly since those very bodies were nourished for so very long by the state itself.