His face may be covered in tar and feathers - but his body language clearly spells out the shame he feels.

And the words scrawled on a placard around his neck announce the reason for his very public humiliation.

Though undoubtedly crude, this is justice, as carried out by a group of Northern Irish vigilantes frustrated at alleged police inaction.

The victim, a man in his 30s, was last Sunday subjected to a painful and humiliating ‘tar and feathering’ in a loyalist stronghold of South Belfast.

Two masked men tied the man to a lamppost, poured tar over his head and then threw white feathers at him.

A small crowd including women and children looked on as the men then adorned their victim with a placard reading: “I’m a drug dealing scumbag”.

Pictures of the punishment were then proudly sent to a local newspaper.

The punishment harks back to the worst days of The Troubles, when loyalist and republican paramilitaries would routinely punish alleged criminals in the most brutal manner.

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