The South Belfast MLA stated: "We are confronting a situation where there may be a differentiation made between people who had a death threat communicated to them directly and people who had it communicated via the police. That is an obvious nonsense.

"It should be self-evident that those who received death threats should be treated in the exact same way, regardless of how that threat was communicated.

"We do have to move on from this idea that technicalities can be put in the way of victims receiving the support to which they must be entitled. We have already taken far too long at resolving such issues, and this is not the time for bureaucratic barriers."