Four local councillors refuse to back proposal to send a letter of support to the family of a PSNI officer targeted in a bomb attack in Derry yesterday

Four members of Derry City and Strabane District Council today refused to back a proposal to send letters of support to two families at the centre of bomb attacks yesterday.

Viable pipe bomb devices were left outside the home of a PSNI officer in Culmore and outside the home in Sion Mills of a former member of a District Policing Partnership Board.

The Culmore bomb exploded while the security forces were dealing with it.

No one was injured in the attacks but a large number of families were evacuated from their homes during the alerts.

The attacks, which are being blamed on dissident republicans, were discussed today at the monthly meeting of Derry City and Strabane District Council in the Guildhall.

They were condemned by councillors from Sinn Fein, the SDLP, the DUP and the UUP.

However, independent councillor Gary Donnelly accused his council colleagues of ‘selective condemnation’.

Cllr Donnelly said Sinn Fein had recently commemorated IRA volunteers killed during attacks on ‘British police’.

He also accused the DUP of having been a ‘mouthpiece for British police forces’.

Cllr Donnelly claimed that ‘not one single elected representative’ in the council chamber ‘could say that their hands are clean’.

His comments were met with shouts of ‘shame’ from other councillors.

DUP Alderman Drew Thompson said he took exception to Cllr Donnelly’s comments and asked for them to be withdrawn.

SDLP councillor Angela Dobbins proposed that letters of support be sent to the two families targeted in yesterday’s bomb attacks.

Her proposal was supported by all councillors from the main nationalist and unionist parties.

However, four independent councillors – Gary Donnelly, Paul Gallagher, Darren O’Reilly and Warren Robinson – abstained from the vote.