Friendship with exile may have prompted attack

A bus driver was shot because of his close friendship with a man living in fear of the IRA, it was claimed tonight.

Masked gunmen battered Danny McBrearty, 54, around the head with hammers before opening fire on his legs as terrified pensioners looked on from their seats.

The victim has been living with the aunt of Joseph McCloskey, a Derry man exiled in England after a gun battle at his home.

Mr McCloskey’s mother, Bridie, who visited the wounded man in hospital, accused the IRA of attacking him. She said: “It was the Provos who did this.

“Danny was in the house on the night of the shooting last year and they told me ‘We haven’t forgotten about him’.”

Police believe Mr McBrearty may have been trying to resist a paramilitary hijacking when his bus stopped in the Creggan estate last night.

Ulster Unionist leader David Trimble also challenged republicans in Derry to explain the gun attack.

The First Minister claimed the victim may have been targeted because of his links to Mr McCloskey.

The UUP chief asked: “Was yesterday’s horrific attack on Danny McBrearty an attack on the McCloskeys by proxy? Rather than attack them directly, were republicans attempting to gag the McCloskeys?”

An elderly man who had been on the day-trip to Donegal was also injured during the assault in the city’s Creggan estate.

Mr McBrearty was taken to hospital where his condition was today described as ill but stable. He is regarded as an uncle of Mr McCloskey, who fled his home in the Shantallow area in April last year.

Days earlier the father-of-six had been involved in a fight while working as a doorman in a Derry pub.

Fearing for his life, Mr McCloskey took his wife and children – one of whom suffers from Down’s Syndrome – across the border into the Irish Republic. From there they crossed the Irish Sea and set up a new home in the north of England.

Mrs McCloskey staged a picket along with her grandchildren outside Sinn Fein Education Minister Martin McGuinness’s offices earlier this month.

She claimed Mr McGuinness had the influence to get any threat against her son lifted. But a Sinn Fein spokesman tonight dismissed the claims by Mrs McCloskey and Mr Trimble.

He said: “Local sources have indicated that there was no IRA involvement.”

Sinn Fein chairman Mitchel McLaughlin has already met with Mrs McCloskey after she called for an investigation into her son’s decision to leave Derry.

“There was no IRA involvement in the incident regarding her son,” the spokesman added.

“Mitchel McLaughlin has already met with her on that matter.”