Following further contact with local residents in 'The Heights' area of Coleraine, Traditional Unionist Voice Leader, Jim Allister QC has said:-

“I have expressed concern before at the manner in which local Protestant residents in general in ‘The Heights’ area have been villified following the death of Mr McDaid. I note this is continuing, not least from nationalist/republican politicians. They should measure their words more carefully.

"The extent to which the overwhelmingly law-abiding residents of this area have been collectively denigrated is wholly unfair", declared the TUV Leader.

“The law will take its course, and so it should, but equally agitation which seeks to colour and prejudice due process is neither right nor helpful”, added Mr Allister.

“By the same token the attempts by some to lay claim to ‘The Heights’ by wrongly proclaiming it ‘a nationalist area’ is doing nothing to help community relations. Causing the non-nationalist majority to feel under seige, along with a spate of attacks, often unpublicised, on local Protestant families, appears to me to be part of a strategy by sectarian troublemakers. The PSNI must be seen to be proactive and even-handed in their response to this agigation”, warned the TUV Leader.