"Cowards" will not disrupt Derry's way of life insists McCready

A Derry councillor has hit out at “cowards” responsible for a number of bomb hoaxes in the city this past week.

Alderman Ryan McCready of the Ulster Unionist Party, who represents the Faughan ward, was at Fountain Primary School who had been victim of a bomb scare hours before the one that saw the Foyleside Shopping Centre evacuated on Tuesday lunchtime.

The school was able to go about the day as normal after an early morning search from the PSNI revealed that the scare was in fact a hoax.

Along with the incident at the Foyleside Shopping Centre, SDLP Foyle MLA, Sinéad McLaughlin's constituency office was victim to a bomb hoax last week.

Alderman McCready posted a video clip on social media site Twitter to condemn those behind the hoaxes.

He said: “I just want to call out those who are doing this and making these phone calls and disrupting our way of life. You are nothing but cowards and I stand up against you.

“I stand with the people of the city and in this school (Fountain Primary) and the pupils, the staff and the parents and guardians.

“I want to reassure them that they can come to their school without fear and intimidation and they have my full support.”

Later on, Alderman McCready stated that those behind the hoaxes had “nothing to offer this city or this society” and insisted that people simply wanted to live their lives as normal.

He added: “Recent days have brought a number of bomb alerts in various parts of the city, and I condemn every single one of them unreservedly.

“This is a very serious issue in our city, seeking to disrupt our way of life. Last week an SDLP office was targeted in the Waterside, today it was a shopping centre and also the Fountain Primary School in the Cityside.

“Any individual or group who would engage in such activity has nothing to offer this city or this society.

“We are all trying to emerge from Covid and get back to some kind of normality. We have to get the local economy back up and running again.

“People want to visit shops and children want to get back to their schools. All they want to do is to lead normal lives and I am committed to working to help them do exactly that.”