"It's got to the stage now where I'm afraid they're actually going to kill him."

A man in West Belfast has been targeted by violent gangs and subjected to abuse for the past three years because of being gay, according to his worried mother.

Paula Devine told Belfast Live that her 25-year-old son has been incessantly harassed since moving into the neighborhood. Anti-gay bullies have smashed in the windows of his home and spray painted his front door with slurs, and have even stoned him and his dog as they were trying to get out of the house.

“It’s got to the stage now where I’m afraid they’re actually going to kill him,” Devine said. “We’ve loads and loads of police reports, and they’ve given plenty of referrals, but unless they catch them, there’s nothing they can do. We don’t know who they are, and even if we did know who they are, you couldn’t even name them. They would kill you.”

Devine says despite three years of begging for help, she hasn’t received enough support to stop the attacks.

“These people walk away,” she said about the gang members being able to easily escape after an attack. “They’re not afraid to torture him, to shout at him, they just don’t care. It’s a living nightmare.”

The 52-year-old did say that the police have done “as much as they could under the circumstances,” but that it ultimately hasn’t been enough to help her son.

Law enforcement said they are treating the incidents as hate crimes and asking for anyone with information to step forward.