We at LAD are very concerned about Mr. Luke Poots, a co-opted DUP councillor in the City of Lisburn.

Peter Robinson, First Minister with Luke Poots co-opted Councillor
It is understandable that in the run up to May's council elections Mr. Poots should be under a great deal of stress but we fear the mounting pressure may have affected his judgement.

Last night Mr. Poots decided to contribute to the Facebook page of the Alliance Party and commented on online sectarian posts regarding South Belfast MLA Anna Lo in a not so sympathetic manner:

Bizarrely rather than comment on the clearly racist post by 'Jonathan Boyd' Mr.Poots then claimed that he had in the past been the victim of a 'hate campaign' including threats of rape. He then went on to claim that members of the Alliance party had been part of this hate campaign.

We would like to make it clear that we utterly condemn any form of abuse or threats but would point out that Mr. Poots has made allegations in the past without producing any evidence whatsoever. We would also question the wisdom of making such claims on a social networking site but we leave it to others to speculate on Mr. Poots' motives.

According to today's Irish News the Alliance Party are seeking "clarification" on Mr. Poots' posts



Today however things took a new turn when Mr. Poots not only repeated his claims but also stated on his Facebook page that: 

 "the group that posted a lot of the material online engaged in regular discussion with Alliance party members who like to run me down and I quote one of their staffs (sic) responses to the group who were making fun of these allegations such as rape (which is by no means funny or a joke) "im a bit in love with @******* now. Great posts!" "
We assume that he is referring to this exchange with Slugger O'Toole writer David McCann who had just published an interview with a few of us here at LAD.


As you can see the Alliance staffer was not writing to us at all and Mr. Poots really should consult a dictionary for a definition of slander.

We would like to make a few things clear:

  1. There is no connection between LAD and the Alliance Party. In fact there is no connection between LAD and any political party. As you know we abhor democracy so why would we support a political party? We asked Alliance Chief Whip Stewart Dickson for a comment and he said "We have no connection with LAD."
  2. We have never been involved in any threats towards Luke Poots and if any such threats were made we condemn them unservedly.

Today Health Minister Edwin Poots claimed on his Facebook page that complaints had been made to the PSNI regarding threats to his son:


If any complaints have been made to the PSNI (as Edwin Poots claimed back in November) we will be pleased to assist them with their enquiries.

Ulster Star November 22 2013
All of this leads us to ask the following questions:

1. When was a complaint made to the PSNI and what was their response?

2. What evidence exists of these alleged threats and when will it be made available to the public?

3. What evidence exists of our involvement in any such threats (should they exist)?

4. What evidence exists of a link between the Alliance Party and LAD?

 
We look forward to hearing the answers.