Brick attack 'third within hours'

Jackie Anderson is in a stable condition in hospital

A County Down taxi driver is facing reconstructive surgery after a brick was thrown through his car window.

Jackie Anderson, from Newtownards, was driving along the Portaferry Road on Saturday when it is thought people in another car threw a brick.

He suffered severe head and facial injuries, but is said to be stable. It was the third incident within hours.

A family friend said he was lucky to be alive, but warned someone would be killed if the attacks did not stop.

Stephen Griffin said: "The brick just went straight through, it hasn't bounced off the screen, so it must have been thrown at some force."

He said the taxi driver would need to have his nose reconstructed.

The brick was hurled through the windscreen of the taxi

A family, which escaped injury in a similar attack a short time later, found Mr Anderson semi-conscious.

Dermot Gilmore was travelling home from the Odyssey in Belfast with his wife and his two young sons when a brick hit his bonnet and windscreen.

"We were meeting a car in the opposite direction and the next thing my windscreen came in, shattered. My wife said: 'That was a brick'," he said.

"Just around the corner then, I saw the taxi sitting. I could see that he had also got a brick through his windscreen.

"We stopped to see what had happened. It was shocking. His face was smashed, there was blood everywhere. He was just about conscious."

Windscreen shattered

Assembly member Kieran McCarthy said the latest incident was a "murderous attack on a completely innocent motorist".

There was a similar attack on a woman driving on the road more than an hour earlier.

A group of youths threw a bottle at her car about two miles outside Portaferry. Her windscreen was shattered but she escaped injury.

Six drivers in the Ards Peninsula area had objects thrown at their cars on 11 January. All escaped injury.

Detectives have appealed for anyone with information about the attacks to contact them.