More victims of the sectarian hatred that drove a gang to beat a Catholic schoolboy to death are going undetected, Northern Ireland's Chief Constable warned tonight.
Sir Hugh Orde claimed bigoted thugs were emerging from a new generation, and likened the horrific attack on Michael McIlveen, 15, to the tribal violence he witnessed on the streets of London.
As Michael's devastated mother, Gina, laid flowers on the alleyway in Ballymena, Co Antrim where he was beaten with a baseball bat, Sir Hugh urged schools and parents to help police instil tolerance.
The Chief Constable said: "This was a young kid that was killed, 15, and the people arrested are young. "This is the next generation, and lets not tar or identify every young person as someone who's into sectarian crime.
"But there are people from the next generation who are prepared to go out looking for people, on both sides, it's a two-way thing."
The murder has stunned Ballymena, a predominantly Protestant town increasingly gripped by sectarian tensions.
Even though the gang warfare being waged by rival Protestant and Catholic youths in Ballymena has forced police to increase patrols, Sir Hugh insisted the town was not "a centre of evil".
He recognised most of the public across Northern Ireland wanted an integrated society with respect for diversity, yet claimed a minority still saw nothing wrong with sectarianism.
"We need to achieve a cultural shift, it needs to be seen as clearly unacceptable," the Chief Constable said.
"It's absolutely a role for us, but it's a role for education, it's a role for communities, it's a role for families.
"We will do our best to bring people to justice, but people need to speak to us, people need to tell us the real level of this.
"Because are we capturing the real level of this? I don't think so. I would not be surprised if more people are victims of this than we are getting."