Raiders in threat to nail disabled woman’s hand to table

A DISABLED pensioner was beaten and threatened with having her hand nailed to a table during a robbery at her Co Antrim home.

The raiders escaped with just a few pounds after subjecting the 64-year-old woman to her terrifying ordeal. The woman has been detained in hospital with extensive bruising after her ordeal.

Two masked men armed with sticks entered her home at Brooke Park, in the Hallyville area of Ballymena late on Saturday night, threatened her and beat her with the sticks.

The woman suffered bruising to the head, arms, hands and legs after being battered with the sticks and also suffered scrapes to her arms. She was detained in hospital for treatment.

The intruders ransacked the living room of the house and found a piggy bank which they smashed and took the contents.

While the room was being ransacked one of the men found a four inch nail and threatened to nail the pensioner’s hand to the table. At some stage during her ordeal the woman, who was alone in the house at the time, passed out and when she came round the men had gone.

Local DUP councillor Martin Clarke said: The Democratic Unionist Party politician said: “Its absolutely disgraceful, really deplorable.”

Declan O’Loan, chairman of the local District Policing Partnership, called on people in the area to do whatever they could to see the culprits were caught.

Officers in Belfast hunting a rapist who attacked a woman during a burglary at her home last week have made an arrest.

The 36-year-old woke in the early hours of Friday morning to find two men in the bedroom of her house at Brookvale Avenue, north Belfast.

One ransacked the room while the other raped her, police said. She was also hit on the head and body in what police branded an “abhorrent and cowardly crime.”

The woman was said to be extremely traumatised.