VIDEO: Peadar Heffron recalls moment his car blew up putting him in a wheelchair - stressing he is not bitter and 'it is not the end of the world'

GAA player Peadar Heffron was the most recent casualty of paramilitarism who was speaking at the terror remembrance event in Stormont yesterday.

As well as recounting the detonation of the device and his gruelling efforts to walk again, he says he does not expect to ever see anyone in court over the murder attempt.

He told the gathering at Stormont that he had been summoned to see Special Branch over concerns for his safety well before the attack, because a threat message had come through saying dissidents were “monitoring his movements – including his sporting activity”.

With the kind of understatement that characterised his whole speech, he told the audience: “I wasn’t best pleased with that.”

He recalled that the day of the bombing was a cold and snowy one, and that it was just by chance his wife had not been travelling in the same car.

There was a bang, and the car spun and stopped.

“There were flames coming from between my legs. My immediate reaction was to climb out of the car, but I couldn't do that because my legs weren't working so I just pulled myself out of the car using my arms.

“I lay down in the road, put my hand in my pocket and phoned my wife.”

When it became apparent he had been a victim of an under-car booby trap, Mr Heffron said again that he “wasn’t best pleased”.

It turned out “I basically had nothing from the base of my back to the top of my thighs”.

He remains in a wheelchair today – but recalled managing to walk 100 yards, albeit with so much effort that “the sweat was lashing off me”.

It took him seven-and-a-half minutes to go that far.

He has refused to give up sport, and now plays hurling and basketball from his wheelchair.

He concluded by saying: “I never imagined in my lifetime I’d end up in a wheelchair.

"It’s a different world. But it’s not the end of the world.”

Mr Heffron expressed concern that policing is “broken” in Northern Ireland and said communities on all sides needed to do more to make it work.

He suggested politicians also had to “pull their finger out” as he reflected on the continued reluctance of some young nationalists to join the PSNI amid the security threat posed by dissidents.

Asked if he was bitter, he said: “That wouldn't do me any good.

“And it wouldn't do my family or my wife or any of my friends any good me getting depressed or being bitter or whatever way you want to describe that.

“The people that did this, they have to live with it.

“I obviously have to live with the consequences, but I just get on with it. I can't change it.”

Asked if he knows who attacked him, he said: “There were people arrested at the time. No-one was ever charged.

"Ultimately, I don’t believe anyone ever will be.

"Does it make any difference to my life? No.”

He added: “If these people want to come and chat to me, I’ll chat to them – to hear what they have to say.”