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Orange Hall paint attack being treated as hate crime

Handout Blue paint splashed over a yellow coloured Orange Hall in Rasharkin. The words IRA are written on a path to the left of the building.Handout
The incident happened at an Orange Hall in Rasharkin, County Antrim

Paint has been thrown over the front of an Orange Hall in County Antrim in an incident that is being treated as a sectarian-motivated hate crime.

Police said graffiti was also "daubed on walls opposite" during the attack on Main Street in Rasharkin, which was reported shortly after 01:20 BST on Saturday.

Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) Supt Sinead McIldowney said the police condemns "all sectarian hate crime" and that criminal damage "caused to any property is absolutely unacceptable".

She said the PSNI would "thoroughly investigate this matter" and appealed for information about the incident.

DUP councillor Mervyn Storey described it as "a sickening sectarian hate crime" and said it is "to be condemned in the strongest possible terms".

North Antrim MP and Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV) leader, Jim Allister, also condemned the attack and said it "typifies the unbridled hatred of Orange and Unionist culture that is designed to drive out its remaining Protestant residents".