The Clampers’ Association of Tyrone (CAT) are this evening said to be distraught after a 400% rise in bolt cutter sales since last week in stores all over the county.

Although the high-profile nature of Gerry Kelly’s skirmish with a clamp in Belfast is being blamed for the spike in figures, CAT spokesman Malachy Tally insisted it’s not a time to be pointing fingers:

“I’ve seen children as young as four walking about with bolt cutters trying to break into playgrounds long after closing hours, and pensioners forcing their way past locked doors into churches for some extra praying. It’s getting out of hand and we call on all rationally minded people to intervene when they see someone loitering with intent with a pair of cutters over their back.”

Meanwhile, the price of bolt cutters have rocketed since the weekend, with a Coalisland firm already in the process of setting up a crytpo-currency ICO start-up to raise funds to mass produce wire and bolt cutting devices.

Finally, an anti-clamp bolt-cutting cult in Strabane, known as the Clampets, have issued a statement, reminding people that they were not behind the recent damage done to a fence surrounding the Clady chicken farm which resulted in 70’000 chickens, some headless, running wild and clucking around the village from midnight last night til 6pm today.