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A barworker forced to leave Northern Ireland by IRA death threats has asked MPs to take up his case.

Joseph McCloskey left his home last April after he removed a rowdy customer with "republican contacts" from the Londonderry bar where he worked

Masked men smashed down the front door of the 30-year-old father-of-six's house with a sledge hammer and told Mr McCloskey he had to leave Ireland.

Mr McCloskey told a news conference ahead of a Westminster Hall debate on paramilitary intimidation: "I left Ireland the next day. All in all it's been a traumatic experience for me and my family. We just want to get back home again."

Mr McCloskey's mother, Bridie McCloskey, 51, said she had "no doubt" that the IRA was responsible for the raid and the threats. She said Sinn Fein leaders knew about it after she contacted them.

She said: "After I chased them around for a while, (Sinn Fein national chairman) Mitchel McLaughlin said he would talk to me. But all he wanted was my news - he wasn't helping us with anything. He more or less told me it was a figment of my imagination.

"But they did come to kill Joseph. They didn't come to beat him up, they had no baseball bats. They had just the guns. I'm calling on Sinn Fein to go public about it all."

Labour's Harry Barnes, MP for NE Derbyshire and a member of the Commons Northern Ireland affairs committee, asked Sinn Fein leaders Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness to listen to the debate and meet MPs afterwards.

The Sinn Fein MPs have not taken their seats in Parliament as they will not swear the oath of allegiance to the Queen. They have, however, been given the use of offices in the Commons.

Mr Barnes said he had not yet received a "positive response" from Mr Adams and Mr McGuinness, and thought it unlikely that they would watch the debate in Westminster Hall.

Story filed: 15:04 Thursday 14th February 2002

Law and order
Terrorism

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