The Belfast drop-in centre of a charity working with people with addiction problems, has suffered extensive damage in a ram-raid style attack.
The attack on the Welcome organisation’s Townsend Street premises, took place shortly after midnight on Tuesday. A suspected stolen Volkswagen Golf was reverse rammed against the building’s shutters and set alight.
According to PSNI, the driver ran from the scene and entry was not gained to the building. NI Fire and Rescue Service was tasked to the scene and extinguished the fire.
Speaking to The Irish News, Welcome’s chairperson, Jude Whyte described the incident as “a major setback”.
He added: “This is the second time the centre had been attacked and I am concerned about the knock-on effect on Welcome’s services due to an inevitable insurance premium increase.
“Enormous damage has been done to the centre, enormous electoral damage and enormous plumbing damage.
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“We have had to move our services out of the building today because, essentially, it is not safe at the moment,” said Mr Whyte, who added the charity provided food, clothes, and support services “to the most vulnerable and isolated people in our society”.
“Many of our clients are young women,” he said, “the victims of drugs and alcohol. Our organisation needs to survive, and we need to survive with the total support of the community.
“The trustees are very aware of the concerns of the local community and are trying daily to address them. We do meet the community and we do meet their political representatives, but in the medium term we are looking to try and move from that particular area.
“What is more important, I think, is will these services be able to be delivered because society really just wants to close its eyes to the fact Belfast is ripe with fentanyl, morphine, heroine, crack, spice, and marijuana, and many of these people, very young people often, are really the victims.
“Their behaviour is very, very challenging, but what happened last night will simply make this problem worse because it has to be confronted, it has to be dealt with and the NIHE and supporting people have to stop playing chess games with voluntary organisations. Noone wants to do the work as it is very hard,” said Mr Whyte.
An investigation is underway into the incident and PSNI have appealed to anyone with any information to contact police on 101, quoting reference number 19 23/07/24.
Officers are also keen to hear from anyone who would have any dash-cam or CCTV footage of the Townsend Road or wider area around this time to get in contact.
A report can also be submitted online using the non-emergency reporting form via http://www.psni.police.uk/makeareport/ or you can contact Crimestoppers anonymously on 0800 555 111 or online at http://crimestoppers-uk.org/.
