The mother of murdered Ballymena teenager Michael McIlveen has said her 15-year-old son "did not deserve" his death. Gina McIlveen wore her son's Celtic football shirt as she placed flowers at the spot in a car park where he was fatally attacked. Accompanied by her other son and daughters, she said: "I just can't understand this at all.
"My son was a great child. Everybody loved him, just the way I loved him. He got on with everybody. He had loads of Catholic friends and loads of Protestant friends."
Police are continuing to question five suspects, four men and a juvenile, in connection with the sectarian killing carried out just after midnight on Sunday.
The teenager died on Monday evening after his life-support machine was switched off as his family gathered by his hospital bedside.
Local sources expressed confidence that the murder case would soon result in a court appearance.
Amid a chorus of condemnation from all political parties and the Loyal Orders, Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde called for a sense of balance about the extent of sectarianism especially in Co Antrim. "This was a young kid that was killed, 15, and the people arrested are young," he said.
He likened the crime to racial incidents in London, however he cautioned: "This is the next generation, and let's not tar or identify every young person as someone who's into sectarian crime.
"But there are people from the next generation who are prepared to go out looking for people, on both sides, it's a two-way thing." Recognising that a majority of people wanted to live in a diverse and tolerant society he added: "We need to achieve a cultural shift, it needs to be seen as clearly unacceptable. It's absolutely a role for us, but it's a role for education, it's a role for communities, it's a role for families." He said the police could work most effectively with full co-operation from the public.
"We will do our best to bring people to justice, but people need to speak to us, people need to tell us the real level of this," he said.
North Antrim MP Ian Paisley appealed for sectarian tensions to ease as the summer marching season approached. "I would call on all sides to pull back from the brink before tragedy is multiplied by catastrophe," he said.
However, nationalist representatives from Sinn Féin and the SDLP said the DUP in particular should examine their political record in Ballymena, claiming that simple majority rule fuelled sectarianism.
Ulster Unionist leader Sir Reg Empey said the killing "illustrates the distance we have still to travel as a society to what could be described as normality".
Unusually, the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, the Royal Black Institution and the Independent Loyal Orange Institution issued a joint condemnation. "No claim to political loyalty or religious affiliation can possibly justify such a reprehensible and wicked crime," they said.