'˜Dragging people up back lanes, holding them down and maiming them is cruel, futile and egotistical'

He said: “These actions are cruel, futile and designed not to help the community but to boost the egos and sense of authority of the vigilante groups involved.

“Working class areas in Derry, as elsewhere, suffer from grievous neglect and even hostility from the powers that be. Dragging people up back lanes, holding them down and maiming them does nothing whatever to ease this situation.

“If tactics like this could solve anything, we’d be living in a very contented society. These assaults have been going on for 40 years. They haven’t worked and they won’t work.

“We need a mass revolt against austerity, against the destruction of services, the lack of decent housing, the fact that there are no jobs for thousands of young people even to aspire to, the starving of hospitals and schools of resources.

“The main result of shootings like Tuesday’s is to belittle the role of the community itself in fighting the root causes of anti-social behaviour.”