Speed camera destroyed by pipe bomb

A speed camera was destroyed in a bomb attack in north Belfast early today.

Shortly after 5 a.m. a police patrol heard an explosion in the Antrim Road area and traced it to the camera position in nearby Chichester Park.

A pipe bomb type device containing two gas cylinders was found to have detonated at the camera. It was later examined to establish the extent of the damage.

Fixed speed cameras only arrived in Northern Ireland during the summer as part of a police campaign to cut down the province's spiralling road deaths - 123 so far this year.

PAA Police Service spokeswoman said this was not the first time a camera had been attacked but that it was the first time a bomb had been used.