Crucified man cried at pictures of himself

A young man crucified by vigilantes near Belfast today spoke about his horrifying ordeal.

Harry McCartan, who was savagely beaten and left nailed to wooden posts on a loyalist housing estate at the weekend, cried when he saw newspaper photographs of himself, his family said today.

Speaking to PA News from his hospital bed, the 23-year-old Catholic, from the nationalist Poleglass estate, struggled to make himself understood because of horrific injuries to his mouth.

He said he remembered nothing about the attack.

“Nobody should be treated like this,” he said. “They are just cowards. I was on my own and it took more than four people to do this.

“They are lower than animals.”

Mr McCartan, who was released from prison last month after serving a sentence for car crime, said the last thing he remembered was arguing with a friend and driving around trying to find him.

“When I woke up my knees were aching and my hands, and I saw all the blood running out of my eyes and my mouth and I just thought it was a dream. I saw my father and my brother standing beside me and I asked them what had happened.”

Sources from the Ulster Defence Association today said that the attack had definitely been carried out by loyalists but denied that it had orchestrated it.

But Mr McCartan’s family claimed it had taken place because he was a Catholic.

His brother Neil, 31, said he had documentation with his name and address in his car. “They knew that he was from Poleglass and they said: ’We have got a Catholic here.’ I think he was left there to die. I hear it was remote and out of the way and I don’t think he was meant to be found alive.”