Gun attack victim '˜forced' from home

The 45-year-old man told the Mid Ulster Mail he was asleep on the couch in his front room at Tullyveagh Road when a shot through the window showered him with glass at around 2.45am.

He said: “I was just lying sleeping on the couch, and I heard this bang. Glass came in around me, like powder all over the place.

“I didn’t hear a car taking off. They had to come and shoot from over the hedge.

“They shot over here at that corner of the window. If anybody had have been sitting in that seat they could have been badly hurt or I could have been killed.”

The man said he needs to find a new home.

“I have to move out of here now. I have to leave and it’s been my home this four years,” he added.

“I’m not well, I have to start looking for a place. In the night I hear voices and it’s all coming back to me. My life’s wrecked.”

The man said he had not been threatened before the attack.

Asked if his life had been threatened in the run up to the attack or if he knew why he was targeted, he said: “There were no threats, but a few things went missing out of my shed... blowers, strimmers, chainsaws. £2,000 worth of stuff.”

Police in Cookstown are appealing for anyone with information about the attack on May 17 to call them on the 101 number.

Detective Constable Paula McGale said: “I would appeal to anyone who may have witnessed any suspicious activity in the Tullyveagh Road area at the time, or who may have information about the incident to contact detectives (or) Crimestoppers on 0800 555 111.”