Loyalist paramilitaries have been blamed for an overnight gun attack on a Catholic family in Ballynahinch, Co Down.
The victims, a man and his three children, recently moved into the property on Calbert Way - which is a staunchly Protestant estate.
Gunmen fired on the house last night and at least two bullets hit the house, one shattering a living room window and showering the father (34) in glass.
He ran upstairs and barricaded his family into a bedroom before phoning the police. The family's ordeal has left them suffering from severe shock.
The loyalist Ulster Defence Association has been blamed for the attack.
Jim Wells, a Democratic Unionist Assembly member for the area, hit out at the attack He said: "This was hooligan activity that was meant to intimidate rather than injure. But had a child been downstairs we could have been dealing with serious injury or death."
Ms Margaret Ritchie, a nationalist SDLP MLA for South Down, claimed it was sheer luck that no one was killed.