A Democratic Unionist member of the Stormont assembly has denounced republican celebrations following the death of Margaret Thatcher.

Jonathan Bell described parties organised in Derry and Belfast as "disappointing and disgusting".

In one incident a petrol bomb was thrown at a passing police patrol near Free Derry corner during a street party.

In west Belfast people celebrated on the streets by sounding their car horns and opening champagne bottles.

Bell said: "The response from Sinn Féin and republicans to the death of our former prime minister Margaret Thatcher, whom the IRA sought to murder, was both disappointing and disgusting.

"While many will differ on policy – such is the nature of the democratic process – all right thinking people will regard the carnival celebrations following Baroness Thatcher's death as deeply inappropriate. At a time of bereavement there should be human compassion for those in mourning."

Thatcher was the IRA's main target for assassination during the 1980s. Republicans say it was her refusal to bend to prisoners' demands to be recognised as political inmates that resulted in 10 hunger strikers dying in the Maze prison in 1981.

However, in recent years evidence has emerged that Thatcher's government was prepared to offer major concessions in the summer of 1981 to the prisoners that could have prevented deaths.

In 1984 the IRA almost killed the former prime minister when the organisation bombed the Grand hotel in Brighton during the Tory party conference.