Tracey Coulter at her home after an attack by loyalists earlier this year
BY SUZANNE BREEN AND CLAIRE WILLIAMSON – 02 DECEMBER 2013
A mother of four has told how her children watched in horror as a fire engulfed their home in Belfast's Shankill Road area.
The UDA has been blamed for the malicious fire started at the house in Shankill Terrace.
The Fire Service sent seven appliances and 33 firefighters at 7.15pm last night as flames threatened to spread to nearby roofs.
Residents on either side were evacuated from their homes and eye-witnesses described a hole in the roof where flames were bursting through.
It comes just three days after UDA killer William 'Mo' Courtney (50) was convicted of headbutting Ms Coulter during a confrontation over drugs.
Tracey Coulter said her four children, aged between four and 15, had been left devastated.
"We were round the corner in my mother's in Boundary Way when my eight-year-old daughter Ellie came running in yelling that our house was on fire," said the anti-drugs campaigner.
"She was hysterical. She was crying her eyes out. My kids are wrecked by this. I don't know yet what the damage is to the house and whether we'll be able to move back or not for Christmas.
"It's the children who are suffering. They don't know whether their Christmas presents are destroyed or not."
Ms Coulter denounced those responsible for the attack as "pathetic, animals".
She said she had no doubt it was the work of the UDA: "This is because I gave evidence against Mo Courtney. "It is the UDA's response to his conviction last week – but I don't for one second regret what I did. I'd do it again tomorrow and I'd urge everyone to stand up to them."
She called on First Minister Peter Robinson to immediately end funding for community centres that employed members of the paramilitary group.
Courtney assaulted Ms Coulter after she travelled to the Lower Shankill Community Association offices to speak to one of his associates about the death of a relative.
Her cousin Neil Orr had died from suspected drug abuse a week before the incident.
She said: "The government have to take action. They cannot continue to let law-abiding citizens be tortured by these thugs. The situation on the ground and the level of intimidation of ordinary people like me is getting worse."
Ms Coulter, whose home has been fitted with bulletproof windows and doors, said she would continue to defy UDA threats.
"I will not be driven from my home by these gangsters. I am staying in the Shankill. There is no way the bully boys are forcing to force me to leave.
"This attack is just the latest in a long line of intimidation my family has faced since I stood up to the UDA. My four-year-old son Justin gets upset at the abuse that they hurl at us."
It is understood that the attack was captured on CCTV.
BACKGROUND
On Friday, Mo Courtney was convicted of assaulting Tracey Coulter at a government-funded community centre in west Belfast in July.
Ms Coulter had gone to the Lower Shankill Community Association offices to speak to one of his associates about the suspected drug-related death of a relative.
Mo Courtney was sentenced to eight years for manslaughter in 2003.
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+3
belfastbugsy0p· 18 minutes ago
to be fair, what more do you expect living in a community dominated by these scum..get out, get your kids out and start enjoying life somewhere else....let them have it because it's only going to turn into a drug ridden dive, it's not going to get any better..these areas of Belfast are best left for the scum that infests them... there is a world out there, get out and enjoy and let your kids enjoy it and leave the filth behind.
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+12
JollyBodger93p· 3 hours ago
What a horrific story. Arsonists should get double sentences in jail. It is worth noting that the red-banner brigade, (the same ones who were commenting repeatedly about Jean McConvilles killers over the last few weeks), are totally absent when it comes to voicing an opinion about this attack by these scumbags. Your absence here says it all, hypocrites.
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2 replies · active 39 minutes ago
+59
donegalmartin15p· 8 hours ago
What I can't understand is where is the DUP, UUP,TUV or even PUP, this woman needs help because she has stood up to the "hardmen " of the uda and is now in fear for herself and her children but the silence from the politicians is deafening. Dodds, Donaldson,Wilson Campbell, McAllister and Nesbitt always have plenty to scream about when it come to Republicans and Nationalists but where are they when its one of their own that needs them "NOWHERE" Im sure that a big hero of the Shankill Billy Hutchinson could resolve this matter but again silence from the PUP/UVF.
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1 reply · active 1 hour ago
+43
Boutye91p· 7 hours ago
What an amazingly brave woman!
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2 replies · active 1 hour ago
+45
wmcrookshanks105p· 9 hours ago
Makes you wonder why the PSNI with all their intelligence sources don't crack down on the perpetrators of this cowardly attack on a vulnerable woman with a young family. If they don't already know who committed the attack then they aren't doing their jobs and if they do know what is the agenda in appeasing or accomodating Loyalist paramilitaries who are a scourge on their already stressed communities.All the paramilitary groups should be treated like any other criminal gangs,rounded up and taken out of the equation so ordinary law abiding citizens can get on with their lives free from threats,intimidation,murder and all the social ills connected to their drug dealing and extortion rackets.
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2 replies · active 1 hour ago
+4
Nigga66630p· 2 hours ago
Why are we to have sympathy for a former lover of Johnny Adair, who for six years dated his top hitman, notorious sectarian killer Steve "Top Gun" McKeag, who shot 13 Catholics dead in cold blood? She's also the daughter of UDA man Jackie Coulter, shot in feud with UVF in 2000. If you lie down with dogs, you're going to get up with fleas.
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+44
Rosieroop106p· 7 hours ago
This is the real 'culture' these people are trying to protect. The culture of fear, intimidation, violence, drugs and gangsterism, all wrapped up in a union flag.
What sad, pathetic excuses for human beings they are who headbutt women and set fire to a house full of children. Where are the Saturday protests for this unacceptable intimidation. The Shankill people, their political representatives and the PSNI should get behind Tracey Coulter and run these people out of their community and straight into jail.
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2 replies · active 2 hours ago
+2
JohnLSullivan94p· 2 hours ago
Being 3000 miles away its easy for me to comment about Police and protection but isn't about time the security forces swooped in and arrested these criminals?
I'm a card carrying liberal who wants all the benefits of a free society and certainly abhors a police state but these criminal elements are a menace to society in Northern Ireland....they would be shunned in other countries but they hide behind political smoke screens and local nimrods feel they need them for protection....
They've created an environment where no one speaks out, everyone accepts and lawlessness rules the day.
Small business owners suffer as they have to pay kick backs (reflected in prices so consumer really pays) and Winkie and the boys have an extensive array of arms and muscle to keep this den of iniquity.... a reality !!!
All the posters that said the MRF had a right to exterminate the Provies should also be calling for similar actions against the drug dealers...if truth be told they are just as big a problem to everlasting peace as the Provo's yet no one is shining a light on them???
This lady has more balls than the lot of them put together!!!!
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+8
bladeybaby92p· 3 hours ago
Unfortunately that's the way things are here. As brave as this woman is coupled with the media coverage, if this was Hackney, Moss side, Finglas or a lot of other areas in cities it would be seen as just the local gangsters wielding their power.
But because it's UDA or UVF or IRA or RAID they get air or page time. Take the rally at the weekend. The question was asked 'Has the UVF organised this march'. In a supposedly law abiding democratic society what is wrong with this question?
Most of us, whilst not agreeing, can I think understand why these organizations existed in the past. But that need is gone. Why are they still here? Money, greed, power whatever.
Only when the local people do what the people of Dundalk did to McKevitt will they be able to move on. As sure as we breath they'll get no help from the politicians of these areas because they either sympathise, are involved with or are remnants of these organizations.
We stand behind Tracey, we hear her and we shout with her. But to the people who can change things and make a difference it falls on deaf ears.
Unfortunately that's the way things are here.
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+25
Seamus0998p· 4 hours ago
Jim Allister (TUV) said that he would stand by the 'fleggers'. I wonder will he stand by this woman and family and condemn the UDA. I doubt it. He still has not condemned the violence against two PSNI officers.
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