Northern Ireland

Co Antrim cafe attacked

Masked men threw paint at Arden's of Whitehead on Monday night. Picture by Arden's of Whitehead/ Twitter
Masked men threw paint at Arden's of Whitehead on Monday night. Picture by Arden's of Whitehead/ Twitter Masked men threw paint at Arden's of Whitehead on Monday night. Picture by Arden's of Whitehead/ Twitter

A newly-opened cafe in Co Antrim has been attacked.

Masked men threw paint at Arden's of Whitehead, smashing a large stained glass window dating back more than 100 years.

The business on Kings Road is owned by Barbara and John Paul Whearty, who were upstairs with their young child when the attack happened on Monday night.

The also own Belfast business Cafe Cuan, while Mr Whearty was founder of the Loyalists Against Democracy (LAD) social media parody accounts.

Police last night said they were treating it as a hate crime.

A spokeswoman said: "A window was smashed and paint thrown over the premises by three men at around 11.05pm.

"Anyone with information regarding this crime is asked to contact police on 101."

In a post on social media, the owners said: "Tonight, our beautiful building was vandalised and an original pane of glass from 1905 destroyed.

"All while our owners and their young child were upstairs."

They also said in their post there have been suggestions on social media that they would be targeted.

"We are very grateful they didn’t choose to burn them out, as was suggested on social media this week," they said.

The coffee shop, which had only opened in July, remained closed yesterday.

LAD was set up by Dundalk native John-Paul Whearty in 2012 in response to loyalist flag protests but he has said he not been involved with it since 2016.

It emerged last week that its Twitter and Facebook accounts had been taken offline.