A HOUSEBOUND Bangor pensioner has been forced from her home after it was attacked twice by vandals.
The Skipperstone home of the 80 year-old woman was attacked on Friday night and again on Sunday with a breeze block being thrown through a window during one of the incidents.
Dependant on oxygen, the woman is now settling into a new home after deciding to move because of the trauma of the weekend attacks.
Her former home was situated between two derelict houses facing Bloomfield Shopping Centre and it is believed the vandals were unaware that some of the houses in the row were still lived in.
Speaking on her behalf, her sister said the elderly woman had been in hospital two weeks prior to the incident and is heavily reliant on oxygen.
“The incident happened just after 7pm on Friday night past,” said her sister.
“I had been over in the afternoon and she rang me to say somebody was outside shining a torch of different colours and she wondered what it was. She thought it might have been police men looking round for antisocial behaviour.”
The vandals banged on the pensioner’s windows before throwing half a breeze block through her bathroom window.
“That block came through and the glass shattered everywhere, it was horrendous,” the sister said, adding that it left a gaping hole in the window, which she and her husband patched up with cardboard.
When the pensioner put her lights on the vandals made off, leaving her feeling vulnerable and scared.
“If my sister had been in the bathroom at the time they could have killed her. The glass was right the way up towards her bed – they must have thrown the block with such force” her sister continued.
With both houses on either side of the pensioner’s home empty, the sister suggested that the incident may have simply been mindless vandalism, with the vandals unaware somebody was living in the house.
“The houses on the side of her are boarded up and she’s not boarded up, but because it was dark out the back and she didn’t have her light on they maybe thought there was nobody in the house,” she said.
However, vandals returned to her house on Sunday night, with people breaking glass bottles.
The sister continued: “Why would you pick on elderly people? They aren’t doing them any harm. That could be their granny!.I think it’s just awful.”
Thankfully the pensioner has been able to find another house to relocate to, but with oxygen to think about, address changes and more, both she and her sister have a lot of changes to put in place.
“They don’t think about all the inconveniences,” she said.
“We have so many people to contact now to change her address, from getting the electric changed, ordering oxygen filters to her house, trying to get her new bed. It’s not just putting a brick through and cleaning up – it’s all the aftermath and money you have to spend getting everything sorted.”
North Down MLA Alex Easton described the attack as ‘despicable and evil’.
“This sort of behaviour cannot be tolerated and I would condemn these evil actions. This is not wanted in our society,” he said.
“I would urge anyone with information to come forward to the PSNI so those responsible can be brought before the courts for their actions.”
