A NORTH Antrim politician is to sue his own council after his effigy was burnt on a Twelfth bonfire on land owned by the local authority.
Causeway Coast and Glens councillor Padraig McShane took the action after council chiefs admitted that the bonfire in Bushmills, Co Antrim, was placed on the boundary of land owned by it.
The bonfire caused controversy after it emerged that a stuffed effigy of the independent councillor was placed on the pyre.
The revelation follows anger over offensive displays on other loyalist bonfires, including one at the centre of a police hate crime investigation.
In a letter to Mr McShane’s legal team a council solicitor confirmed the bonfire was built on the boundary of land owned by it and the housing executive and the location was agreed by the council, executive, fire service and PSNI in May 2015.
A crosshair was also painted on the head along with the words "Padraig McShane army council".
Effigies of Derry and Strabane independent councillor Gary Donnelly and Palestinian representative Mohammed Al-Halabi, who visited the north coast earlier this year, were also placed on the bonfire.
The effigies were a depiction of a photograph taken during a visit by the Palestinian official to the Causeway Coast and Glens council's offices in Coleraine in June which sparked controversy.
The picture showed two Derry councillors with Mr Al-Halabi and Mr McShane along with a Palestinian flag and tricolour draped over a table in the council chamber.
Mr McShane last night declined to comment saying only that he was “deeply shocked by the whole affair”.
His solicitor Michael Brentnall said they believed the council had been negligent.
“Our client has instructed that we initiate legal proceedings in his behalf against Causeway Coast and Glens Council on the basis that it facilitated a bonfire on its land in which serious allegations and threats were made against our client, which put his life at risk, as well as being negligent in falling to supervise the bonfire, or its activities which it funded,” he said.
A spokeswoman for Causeway Coast and Glens Borough Council said it “is not in a position to comment at this time”.
“The matter is subject to a legal issue and is currently being investigated,” she said.
It is not the first time the former Sinn Féin member has been targeted by loyalists using bonfires to get their message across.
He was visited by police after a death threat written on a tricolour was hung from a loyalist bonfire in nearby Dervock last year.
His family home was later targeted by arsonists in an attack blamed on the UDA.
