Calm in Newtownards welcomed but expulsions just mean 'one drug gang instead of two'

​The Ulster Unionist member of the policing board said the appearance of up to 50 men on Thursday evening was handled well by police with no violence reported.

The PSNI said officers attended the Weavers Grange area of the town around 8pm.

District commander Superintendent Johnston McDowell said: "There was no disorder but the crowd had ladders and removed South East Antrim UDA insignia from the gable ends of houses before leaving."

Mr Nesbitt said: “I think what happened last night happened very quickly… and the police weren’t prepared, but they handled it fine.”

Mr Nesbitt said he hoped the local community will enjoy a period of calm now that several people caught up in the feud have left the area.

"It is helping to resolve the situation but, talking in broad terms, if what’s happening here is that one drug gang is winning over another drug gang – so we end up with one drug gang rather than two – that is not really a solution as it still leaves a drug gang,” he said.

"It ends the short-term violence but it doesn’t solve the problem. The problem is that we’ve got these criminal gangs that are lining their own pockets, intimidating communities and exercising coercive control.

"Hopefully this will give the community a break, but what i needed is a second step, is for politicians to drive the charge to say ‘how do we make this all never happen again,’ and that involves the police, it involves the housing executive, it involves the council, it involves a whole range of agencies that need to come together and to do it in a coordinated fashion,” Mr Nesbitt added.

Last weekend a BMW X5 vehicle, which had been seized in connection with offences related to the feud, was set on fire outside Dundonald police station. At a meeting of the policing board on Thursday, an assistant chief constable explained that the car had been left outside the station on the understanding it was being collected on behalf of the owner who was in custody.

However, ACC Bobby Singleton revealed that two male pedestrians can be seen on CCTV at 4.45am on Sunday, approaching the car which was then damaged by the ignition of a firelighter on top a rear wheel.

“We’re talking about a very small fire, a firelighter placed there in a matter of seconds, and it was effectively extinguished by the first police call sign that attended within two to three minutes,” the senior officer said.

Meanwhile, a 45-year-old man arrested in connection with the feud under the Terrorism Act, following a search conducted at a property in Newtownards on Thursday by detectives from the Paramilitary Crime Task Force, has been released following questioning.