Mother's shock at sight of shooting victim

The incident took place in Culdaff Gardens, in the Creggan area of the city, on Monday night.

The mother, who asked not to be named, described her shock at opening her front door at around 10.30pm to find a man crawling up the street with gunshot wounds in his ankles.

“A car came up the street and then I heard gunshots,” she said. “I looked out and no-one seemed to be out in the street so I went out myself and the man was just crawling.

“I couldn’t believe it. The whole thing is mad. I just rang an ambulance for him and waited until it came along.

“Nothing like this has ever happened before. It’s all young children in this street. I couldn’t believe it when I saw him crawling. There didn’t seem to be a lot of blood at first but then I did see he was bleeding badly. I was shocked.

“You don’t want to see that in a street like this full of wee, young children. My children were in bed but this is the summer holidays and there could have been children out even at that time.”

Sinn Féin councillor Colly Kelly said the victim was a delivery man “going about his daily business”.

“While getting out of the car he was then jumped by four men, with iron bars. It then proceeded that he actually got shot,” said Mr Kelly.

“Now, from knowing the family and chatting to the family this morning, this is a quiet man...there really is disgust in the community because the people who know this man, know that he is just a family guy.”

A police spokesperson said four masked men were believed to be involved in the shooting.