Ulster Unionist Party Group Leader on Derry City and Strabane District Council, Alderman Darren Guy, has challenged the ‘bully boy criminals’ using coercive control to orchestrate the rioting today in the Creggan.

Alderman Darren Guy said:

"This afternoon we have again witnessed how local IRA criminals will use young kids in an attempt to draw in PSNI units to Creggan, to attack them with bricks and petrol bombs, by destroying their own area as bait.

" These kids will achieve nothing other than a criminal record and diminish any future chances they have in life, all because bully boy criminals have used coercive control, to have them carry out their sinister fantasies, which amounts to nothing more than child criminal exploitation.

"I would appeal to all parents to know where their kids are and question them as to what they've been up to.

"A Cemetery is sacred to many people.  Today criminals totally disrespected all those interned there by burning clothes within the grounds of the City Cemetery. 

"If you have any evidence as to who these criminals are, then I would urge you to report confidentially to the PSNI any information you may have."