A PRIEST was apparently forced to flee from an intoxicated man during a "bizarre" incident in Co Tyrone.
Footage emerged appearing to show Fr Roland Colhoun being chased along a street in Newtownstewart.
A man in the background seems to stagger in the middle of the road while continuing to shout toward the clergyman.
Several police officers arrived at the scene shortly afterwards and the man was apprehended, according to the Ulster Herald which saw the video.
The incident is believed to have happened on Strabane Road last Friday afternoon.
Fr Colhoun, a priest in Newtownstewart, did not respond yesterday to requests for a comment. A Derry Diocese spokesman also declined to comment.
Sinn Féin councillor Kieran McGuire said he understood the priest had been intending to bless the man's camper van.
"As far as I am aware, a group of people had come to Newtownstewart for a Communion on Saturday," he told the Ulster Herald and Strabane Chronicle.
"The man in the video was drunk all day Friday, although he was apart from the other people.
"Fr Colhoun had been on his rounds or whatever and he had been going to bless the camper van – he might have been speaking to the man earlier – and then the man took at him and Fr Colhoun had to run down the street to get away."
He added: "It was a very bizarre incident but it had to be condemned.
"No matter what your religious beliefs, no man of the cloth should have been treated in this way."
The PSNI was asked yesterday about the incident, but did not respond to requests for a comment.
It is not the first time Fr Colhoun has made headlines. In 2015, he faced criticism from Hindu leaders after he appeared to link yoga to the devil.
He warned against practising yoga or receiving Indian head massages, saying that yoga had its origins in paganism and risked drawing people into a "bad spiritual domain". There, he said, lurks "Satan and the Fallen Angels, the Kingdom of Darkness".
