An Oldpark man hospitalised after being beaten and cut as he visited his daughter on the Shore Road for Christmas claims loyalists were behind the unprovoked attack.

Patrick Rooney, 34, said he had called to see his daughter, who lives with her mother, on Christmas Eve when a man and a woman set upon him outside the house, beating him and inflicting a large cut on his head.

According to Patrick, a pair of reading glasses was used to inflict the wound that saw him in casualty for Christmas.

“It was Christmas Eve and I’d gone down to see my daughter when these people started on me,” he said. “The man was beating me and then the woman got her glasses and stuck them into my head.

“They were loyalists, they were telling me they would get the UVF for me.”

Patrick says he feared for his life.

“I didn’t know if more people were going to show up and I was very, very frightened. In the end the police came and an ambulance took me to the hospital. I want to see my daughter but don’t know if I want to go back down to the Shore Road after this.”

He says he will also be making a complaint against the police in relation to the incident.

“They weren’t interested at all in arresting the people who did this to me. It’s a disgrace.”

A PSNI spokeswoman confirmed they were called to an incident in the area.

“At approximately 5.30pm on Wednesday 24 December police received a report of an altercation outside a house in North Belfast involving two men and a woman. 

A 34-year-old man sustained a minor head injury as a result. Police enquiries are continuing.”