Man tells how he awoke to see van set alight in hate crime
A CHARITY worker has told of the moment he realised his van had been set alight outside his east Belfast home in what police believe was a hate crime.
Ian Campbell, who is the founder of Ten Foundations, spoke out yesterday on the BBC Stephen Nolan show and revealed he woke up in the early hours of Sunday to find the van in flames.
He said: “It was around 3.30am and we had a friend staying with us, a great supporter of the charity.
“She woke up and went downstairs and there were already people on the street who had thankfully phoned the fire brigade.
“I went outside and it was just an inferno, the flames were up to the roof. My van was in flames, a total write-off.”
He added: “The thing that really got to me, I was parked two doors down, it is a row of terraced houses outside a neighbour’s house.
“Another five minutes and that house would have been up in flames. An elderly couple live there and the wife apparently isn’t well, so it was not a good situation at all.” Police are treating the incident as a hate crime.
Mr Campbell believes it was a racist attack towards his charity, as Ten Foundations supports vulnerable families and children in the Philippines. The charity van had been vandalised six months earlier, with all four tyres slashed in that incident.
“At that time we thought it was a random act of vandalism but now looking back, was it something a bit more sinister?” Mr Campbell said.
When asked if he thought he was being targeted for helping children in the Philippines, he added: “The way things are now with so many racist attacks and the way people think, it is a possibility.
“You don’t like to think like that but there are people out there that don’t like the thought that there are other people from other countries living here and working here.
“It’s just awful to think if that is the case.”