The Progressive Unionist Party councillor, Mr Billy Hutchinson, has insisted that those who attempted to abduct him in the Shankill in Belfast yesterday were intent on doing him serious harm, writes Gerry Moriarty, Northern Editor.
The former Assembly member dismissed some Sinn Féin scepticism about the nature of the attack and said that those responsible definitely came from the nationalist Ardoyne area of north Belfast.
Mr Hutchinson, a long-distance runner, said he was out jogging along Cambria Street at 6.15 a.m. yesterday when four men in a white Vauxhall Cavalier pulled up and tried to bundle him into the vehicle.
"I got away, but they came after me in the car. They had more or less bungled it at that stage, but there was a security man who let me into his secure building. He had more or less startled the men, and they drove off then," Mr Hutchinson told The Irish Times.
"It was a hairy enough situation. They definitely wanted to do me serious damage. Whether it was a murder attempt or attempted murder I can't say, but the intent was there," he added.
A local Sinn Féin councillor, Ms Margaret McClenaghan, expressed some doubts about the issue. She did not accept the attack came from Ardoyne, because the incident happened in the staunchly loyalist Shankill area. Perhaps loyalists were to blame, she said.
"Margaret has got it wrong, and she needs to waken up," Mr Hutchinson responded. "As far as she is concerned nobody is sectarian in Ardoyne, nobody would do anything wrong, they are all angels."