Motive sought for shotgun attack

A shot was fired through a bedroom window

Paramilitaries are not being blamed for a gun attack on a family's home in north Belfast on Thursday evening.

The family's car was also damaged by two shotgun blasts during the incident in the Cranbrook Court area of Ardoyne.

A 20-year-old woman who lives in the house said the gunman had opened fire directly at her at about 2200 GMT.

A number of shots were fired at the house, and a bullet went into the bedroom of the woman's eight-year-old sister.

The child had been sent to bed, but had come back down because she was sick, when a bullet smashed through her bedroom window.

The adults were absolutely trembling - I just felt so sorry for them Father Aidan Troy

Her elder sister watched as one of the gunmen fired several rounds at the front of the house.

Local priest Father Aidan Troy visited them after the attack.

"They had an amazingly lucky escape - they were trembling," he said.

"They had to get the little girl away to relatives - it was just too much for her.

"The adults were absolutely trembling - I just felt so sorry for them."

Victimised

The family said they had been victimised for up to a year, but do not know why.

They claimed there had been another gun attack on the house on Saturday, which was not reported to police.

On that occasion they said when the gunmen left they shouted that they were with "the republican movement".

Meanwhile, police in County Tyrone are investigating an incident in which three shots were fired at a house in Benburb.

It happened while a family slept in the house on Drumflugh Road but they did not realise what had happened until Friday morning.