Ihab Shoukri has been out on bail pending charges relating to a raid on a UDA meeting in north Belfast a year ago. The 33-year-old is a former leader of the organisation, but was expelled along with his brother Andre last June.

Simon McDowell, the managing director of a chemical company in Larne, Co Antrim, says the ruling was his toughest ever call. Even his nine-year-old son Rob believed he made a mistake, he says, along with several of his friends, who phoned him afterwards.

A TRAPPED young whale was put down yesterday after losing a three- day battle to escape back into the Irish Sea. Exhausted and distressed, the 15-tonne mammal beached on the shoreline at Larne Lough, Co Antrim, in Northern Ireland.