Victims' charity questions drop in housing intimidation figures

MORE people are being made homeless following intimidation than official figures show, a victims’ charity has claimed.

The Northern Ireland Housing Executive (NIHE) records the number of people who contact it every year saying they have been made homeless following intimidation, mostly from paramilitaries.

However, the number of people presenting as homeless due to intimidation has fallen consistently over the past five years, according to NIHE figures.

In 2018/19 there were 481 cases compared to just 167 in 2022/23 - a drop of 65%.

The NIHE said it could not account for the reduction.

A spokesman told The Detail: “We are unable to comment on factors behind the decrease in the number of households presenting to us citing intimidation.”

A victims’ charity said it was concerned that the figures are not reflective of the real situation.

Michael Avila, coordinator of the Hate Crime Advocacy Scheme at Victim Support NI, said in his experience intimidation by paramilitaries remains prevalent.

“None of the trends have changed enough anywhere to show that drop,” he said.

“We deal with many cases of housing intimidation each year, and it has a real impact on our clients.

“We have quite a lot of clients that are affected by a range of housing issues, and housing intimidation is one of the main ones.”

Eliza Browning from the Committee for the Administration of Justice (CAJ) said: “While NIHE statistics show that there has been a dramatic decrease in people presenting as homeless due to intimidation over the last five years, this does not seem to correlate to the reality on the ground."

“For example, PSNI (Police Service of Northern Ireland) figures for the crime of intimidation, which includes housing intimidation, have remained relatively stable over the same period," she said.

In 2018/19, the PSNI received 590 reports of intimidation, compared to 509 in 2022/23 - a decrease of just 13%.

A spokesman for the Housing Executive said it has not changed how it records its housing intimidation figures.

“It is unacceptable that people in our communities continue to experience the trauma of intimidation,” he said.

“There has been no change in how we record intimidation presentations or acceptances.

“It should be noted that Housing Executive figures only refer to those housing applicants who approach us seeking to be rehoused.

“They do not and cannot include victims of intimidation who do not seek to be rehoused through the Housing Executive and who make their own rehousing arrangements.

“We are unable to comment on factors behind the decrease in the number of households presenting to us citing intimidation.”

Paramilitary threats

Other figures obtained by The Detail provide a snapshot of the scale of the problem of housing intimidation, 25 years on from the Good Friday Agreement.

Figures from Base 2, a NIHE-funded charity which is tasked with checking the veracity of reports of intimidation, show that paramilitaries have been responsible for thousands of threats.

Over the five years between 2018/19 and 2022/23, republican paramilitaries were allegedly behind 1,248 threats.

During the same period, loyalists were behind 4,047 - three times as many.

Figures from Base 2 show that threats can come from individuals, communities, and criminal gangs.

Over the same five-year period, 1,358 alleged threats came from non-paramilitary sources.

Base 2 said it did not record which specific loyalist or republican groups were behind the alleged threats because it was not required to do so by the NIHE.

“There is no requirement from our funder to provide any information on specific groupings and therefore we do not collate this information,” he said.

“Our work is solely to provide information on the existence of a threat and whether the threat is paramilitary or not.”

He added: “Through the verification process, Base 2 have a number of community contacts who support the verification process.

“Often the information we receive confirms paramilitary threat but doesn’t identify the specific source (the name of the paramilitary organisation).”