Bullet sent to Sinn Féin candidate's home

A bullet has been sent to the home of a Sinn Féin candidate standing in tomorrow's Northern Ireland Assembly elections.

Billy Leonard, a former police officer, said he opened the menacing package in front of his children at their home in Portstewart, Co Derry.

Mr Leonard, a one-time Protestant lay preacher who defected to Sinn Féin from the moderate nationalist SDLP two years ago, has blamed loyalist terrorists for an intensifying intimidation campaign against him.

The Coleraine councillor said: "We had the home attacked a couple of years ago and a hoax bomb alert a couple of weeks ago.

"I've had several very strange warnings on the phone in the middle of the night, more annoying than anything.

"I'm looking at this as a step up in the message they want to send to me.

"The attacks and threats have come from the loyalist side and I'm assuming this is from loyalists to put pressure on, the usual anti-Sinn Fein stuff in the hope it will affect what I do or don't do as a Sinn Féin representative in a mainly loyalist area.''

The bullet, inside bubble-wrapping, was addressed in thick felt tip to Mr Leonard's High Road home.