SDLP’s Trainor: Attack emboldens me to keep going

The PSNI has called for information around the attack on Ms Trainor on Tuesday evening and for any potential witnesses to come forward.

Ms Trainor said she is feeling emboldened to keep going.

“When I see an attack on democracy and an attempt to intimidate, it makes me stronger and it makes me more determined to take down this polarisation and work the common ground,” she said.

“I’m a fiercely determined person and always have been … it’s incidents like this where you can see society is breaking down and it’s hurting us now and will continue to hurt us into the future.

“So I feel emboldened to continue with that message and continue with that determined work.”

Ms Trainor was pushed against a fence and subjected to sectarian abuse, police said, after she chased the pair who, she said, were removing her election posters.

She described witnessing a “systemic attack and intimidation”.

“They went from lamp post to lamp post, with their ladders, cut down the posters and continued on in broad daylight, in rush hour on one of the main roads in Belfast,” she said.

“That was a blatant message that they wanted to send, they wanted to be seen, they wanted to intimidate and they wanted to send a clear message that democracy wouldn’t hold here, their intention would hold here, and that’s what angered me, and that’s what made me want to bring them to justic e and that’s why I gave chase in the first place.”

SDLP leader Colum Eastwood met with Mr Trainor in Ormeau Park yesterday.

He slammed the intimidation of his party’s candidates and expressed concern about the tone in this election campaign.

“We have had candidates intimidated, Elsie of course was attacked in this park, we had posters burned, posters taken down,” he said.

“The tone isn’t good and it is worrying for democracy that people think they can threaten people like Elsie away from the democratic process.”

Ulster Unionist Party leader Doug Beattie joined in the condemnation, calling the incident “absolutely awful”.

He said he hoped the police find the perpetrators.