Ahh JayzusFollow

Police have described as "brutal and barbaric" an attack on a man who was tarred and feathered in south Belfast.

It is thought the attack was carried out on Sunday evening by two men wearing balaclavas, as a crowd including women and children looked on.

The victim was made to wear a placard reading "I'm a drug-dealing scumbag".

Elements of the UDA were blamed for the attack by politicians, although its political wing denied the loyalist paramilitary group was responsible.

Frankie Gallagher of the Ulster Political Research Group said "local people had gone to the UDA to ask them to sort it out", but that it told them to go to the police.

Although the police were made aware of the incident at Finwood Park in Taughmonagh, by the time officers arrived in the loyalist estate, neither the victim nor his attackers could be found.