Intelligence files key to reprieval bid by ex-UDR man convicted of 1983 sectarian murder

JOHN BRESLIN, Irish News, May 16th, 2026

Neil Latimer, one of so-called UDR Four, has insisted for over 40 years that he was wrongly jailed over killing of young Catholic man

Adrian Carroll (24) was shot dead in Armagh in 1983. Four UDR men were convicted of his murder, but three of the men had their convictions later overturned at the Court of Appeal

A FORMER UDR member who claims he was wrongly convicted of the murder of a young Catholic more than four decades ago believes long buried intelligence records may lead to his exoneration.

Neil Latimer, one of the so-called UDR Four convicted of the 1983 murder of Adrian Carroll, has launched a new bid to have the case heard by the Court of Appeal.

The now 64-year-old Latimer, who spent 15 years in prison, has already lost three appeals against the 1986 conviction for the sectarian killing of 24-year-old Mr Carroll in Armagh.

But his supporters, including wife Jill, believe there are military and other documents which could provide enough fresh evidence for a successful application to the Criminal Cases Review Commission (CCRC).

Part of the focus of any new application will be around what intelligence was gathered in the days following the 1983 murder on potential suspects.

The car used by the killers was stolen in Belfast some days before the murder, suggesting a link to paramilitaries operating out of the city.

Mrs Latimer said her husband was given the name of the supposed gunman as soon as he and the others arrived in prison after they were arrested.

She was speaking ahead of the launch of a self-published book by her husband detailing his time in prison and the legal battles during and after. The supposed gunman is named in the book.

Mr Carroll was shot dead in an alleyway on Abbey Street in the city as he made his way home from work on November 8, 1983.

His family have always been clear Latimer, a member of the 2 UDR at the time, was responsible for, and guilty of, the murder.

Three other UDR members were also convicted of murder as part of a conspiracy but acquitted by the appeals court in 1992 after police officers were found to have tampered with interview notes.

‘Complex and challenging’

The conviction against Latimer, who confessed to the murder, later retracted, was upheld largely due to the testimony of Witness A, a woman who worked in the same factory as the accused.

She testified to seeing Latimer shortly after the murder in the same clothing as the gunman, and wearing glasses as another witness reported.

The other witness, who saw the gunman flee the scene and also knew Latimer, testified that he was not the person she saw jump into the getaway car.

Latimer’s solicitor, Owen Beattie, said the “legal landscape of this miscarriage of justice is both complex and challenging”.

“My client has been resolute in his commitment to clear his name,” Mr Beattie said, “At present we are recalibrating our application to Criminal Cases Review Commission following an intensive and thorough review of the case.

“Our application is at an advanced stage, and we intend to seek a meeting with the Commission and other key stakeholders to advance Neil’s bid to overturn his conviction.”

“ At present we are recalibrating our application to Criminal Cases Review Commission following an intensive and thorough review of the case. Our application is at an advanced stage, and we intend to seek a meeting with the Commission and other key stakeholders to advance Neil’s bid to overturn his conviction

The case of the UDR Four generated a huge amount of publicity in the 1980s and into the ’90s and much support for their claims of innocence.

A campaign was launched involving high profile figures, including Ian Paisley Jr, who wrote a book about the case.

But Mrs Latimer said support for her husband in the north evaporated over the years.

“We get very little support in Northern Ireland. It is all from Glasgow and Scotland,” she said.

Police investigating 'sick' graffiti targeting Bloody Sunday families

SHAUN KEENAN, Belfast Telegraph, May 16th, 2026

INCIDENT ON BOGSIDE LANDMARK TREATED AS SECTARIAN HATE CRIME

Police are investigating after sectarian graffiti targeting Bloody Sunday families appeared overnight at Free Derry Corner.

The graffiti, which reads “KAT 13-0”, is understood to reference the phrase “Kill All Taigs” alongside the 13 civilians killed on Bloody Sunday on January 30, 1972.

The PSNI said a passing police patrol noticed the graffiti on Free Derry Corner shortly before 1.30am on Friday.

A spokesperson said the matter is being treated as a sectarian-motivated hate crime and an investigation is now under way. The incident comes as Free Derry Corner in the Bogside undergoes a community-led restoration spearheaded by local artists and tradespeople rather than state funding.

The project involves stripping back the ageing surface, re-plastering the 150-year-old stone wall and replacing the flagpole to secure the historic landmark's structural future.

SDLP MP Colum Eastwood said the attack was an attempt to cause further pain to families who had already suffered enough.

“The hateful, sectarian graffiti that has appeared overnight is disgusting,” he said.

“It seeks to hurt and traumatise the Bloody Sunday families who have fought so long for justice and who deserve the support and compassion of everyone in our city. Those responsible for this attempt to inflict further pain on those families are sick.”

Mr Eastwood said Free Derry Corner held a unique place in the city's identity, having served as a platform for civil rights causes at home and abroad for decades.

“Free Derry Wall is an integral part of the historic and cultural fabric of our city and significant efforts have been made in recent weeks to make sure that it is protected, preserved and restored,” he added. “It has become a community canvas, drawing attention to civil rights issues at home and abroad for decades. I would appeal to anyone with information about this to bring it forward to the police.”

Bloody Sunday was one of the darkest days of the Troubles.

Thirteen people were shot dead and at least 15 others injured when members of the Army's Parachute Regiment opened fire on civil rights demonstrators in the Bogside.

Thousands gathered in the city that day for a rally organised by the Northern Ireland Civil Rights Association to protest at internment.

Police have asked anyone with information, or dash-cam or CCTV footage from the Lecky Road area, to contact Strand Road police station on 101, quoting reference number 72 15/05/26.

The Bloody Sunday Trust has been contacted for comment.

Man caught with assault rifle refused bail to visit dying father

JOHN CASSIDY, Irish News, May 16th, 2026

A DERRY man caught with an assault rifle was refused compassionate bail yesterday to visit his dying father in hospital.

Patrick James Collett (58), of Rossnagalliagh, is in custody after he pleaded guilty to possession of a Romanian AKM assault rifle and ammunition in suspicious circumstances.

He also pleaded guilty on re-arraignment to possessing the 7.62mm assault rifle which had been adapted so that “two or more missiles could be successively discharged without repeated pressure on the trigger”.

Belfast Crown Court heard the carpet fitter mounted the compassionate bail application as his 89-year-old father is in Altnagelvin Hospital suffering from bowel cancer and has been given “months” to live.

Opposing his bid for freedom, a prosecution lawyer said the weapon, ammunition, garden gloves and latex gloves were found in Collett’s car after it was stopped by a specialist police unit on Derry’s Letterkenny Road on May 21 2024.

She told Belfast Recorder Judge Philip Gilpin that police observed Collett going to the home of his co-accused where the weapon was collected and put in the boot of his car.

“The prosecution does have sympathy for Mr Collett in relation to his father but he no longer enjoys the presumption of innocence after his pleas of guilty to two charges,” said the prosecution barrister.

“He is now facing a minimum of five years in prison for his offending.”

A letter from a consultant in acute medicine at Altnagelvin Hospital was furnished to the court which stated that Collett’s father was seriously ill and had only “months” but it was possible his health could rapidly deteriorate.

The prosecution lawyer said there was no suggestion that death was “imminent” and Mr Collett snr is currently stable in hospital.

“What concerns us is that these compassionate bail applications may be brought back on a regular basis. We say there is no imminency and no urgency. Should his condition deteriorate, then this can be looked at again.”

She said Collett had published a number of photographs on his Facebook page which showed an association with violent dissident republicans in Derry.

“He published a photograph with Jason Ceulemans who has terrorist convictions. We say this is a man who has profound and unshakeable links, ties and support for dissident republicanism.”

The prosecution barrister said there were also concerns around the safety of Collett and his father.

“This was a very significant loss for the New IRA of this weapon and ammunition and we are concerned there could be a reprisal attack,” she added.

Six hours

Defence solicitor Rory Muldoon said Collett only wanted to be released from Maghaberry Prison for up to six hours to visit his dying father in Altnagelvin Hospital.

“His father is now 89 years old and has bowel cancer. There is nothing that can be done for him. This is an application by my client to say goodbye to his father. Mr Collett senior will either go home for care or go to the hospice.”

He said that prior to his arrest in May 2024, police had no intelligence on Collett who has a completely clean record.

Mr Muldoon said the photographs referenced by the prosecution were taken in a local bar in the Brandywell where he grew up.

The solicitor said Collett’s brother-in-law has put up a £5,000 cash surety and the defendant’s wife has “scraped together” a further £5,000 cash surety to secure her husband’s release on compassionate bail, one of whom would pick up him up from the jail and take him to the hospital and back to custody.

“This is a very special relationship between a father and his son. Mr Collett was the principal carer for his father before he went into custody.

“The idea that he would get involved with dissident republican activity. That just doesn’t hold water,” added Mr Muldoon.

Following submissions, the Belfast Recorder said he agreed with the prosecution that the compassionate bail application was “premature” and refused to grant Collett temporary release to visit his father.

However, Judge Gilpin said the application could be revisited if there was a deterioration in Mr Collett snr’s condition.

Irish must be part of a new Ireland – but first let it unite the present

PATRICK MURPHY, Irish News, May 16th, 2026

WHAT a sad society we live in when there are those among us who deface or destroy street name signs because they are in Irish or in English.

Our unending loyalty to sectarianism, first in war and now in politics, has been extended to language – and this latest version of our medieval battle is literally being fought street by street.

Against that backdrop, Conradh na Gaeilge (CnG), Ireland’s main Irish language advocacy organisation, has commissioned research into the role of Irish in a united Ireland, by Róisín Nic Liam of Queen’s University.

The report argues that sidelining Irish should not be used as a “bargaining chip” to help unionists accept Irish unity. It is a valid point. Irish is not negotiable.

However, while the report sets out where Irish should be in an all-Ireland future, it might also have examined whether Irish is currently helping or hindering us to reach that future.

Street names, for example, have become sectarian territory markers in many areas.

In Belfast City Council, where Sinn Féin is the largest party, the support of 15% of residents in a street is sufficient for that street to have dual signage.

The figure is 66% in nearby Lisburn, which has a DUP majority.

Belfast’s 15% rule might be termed flexible. This week, for example, the city council pushed through seven streets for Irish language signage even though none of them met the 15% threshold.

Meanwhile, in Galway West, which contains Ireland’s largest Gaeltacht, Sinn Féin could not find a candidate for next week’s by-election who could take part in a TV debate in Irish.

CnG naturally identifies with broad nationalism, but although the organisation is non-sectarian, how does it avoid being seen as anti-unionist in the context of northern politics?

I remember one Sinn Féin councillor at an education board meeting shouting at a DUP councillor: “Irish is our language. You have you own language.”

He made no mention of Presbyterian minister William Neilson’s “Introduction to the Irish Language” (1808) and the role of Presbyterians in preserving it, at a time when the Catholic Church was urging linguistic conversion to English.

The research paper makes that more challenging by claiming that “a united Ireland is now more likely” than at any time since partition. Some evidence suggests otherwise.

Thin slivers of hope

In the 1960s Richard Rose found that 20% of Protestants here regarded themselves as Irish. In the 2021 census that figure had fallen to 4%.

On a personal note, in the late 1960s, I knew of east Belfast Protestants who went to Croke Park on St Patrick’s Day to the Railway Cup hurling final.

I remembered them this week, as I watched East Belfast play in the Down hurling league at the Henry Jones Playing Fields – a council-owned pitch which has been subject to several real and hoax bomb threats because it caters for GAA matches.

Our sectarian war changed things for east Belfast. The challenge for the Irish language community is to change them back.

There is hope. For example, my Protestant neighbours speak of their Irish townland names with pride, using a pronunciation which their fellow Co Down man, William Neilson, would have admired: Drumreagh, Knockbarragh, Ballyagholy and Levallyreagh.

That shared heritage offers one example of a thin sliver of common ground for Irish as a unifying force.

Ironically, townland names were largely obliterated by the Post Office, with the compliance of many local councils – often those same councils which today are imposing Irish signage on road names which regularly ignore townland boundaries.

Meanwhile back in Belfast, the city council recently had to decide on two street names – Stormont Park (proposed as the rather suspect Páirc Chnoc an Anfa, the park of the hill of the storm) and Onslow Gardens (Gairdíní Onslow, even though “Onslow” is apparently of Anglo-Saxon origin, meaning Andred’s hill.)

In both streets, 15% of residents supported dual signage, but more residents in the two streets opposed the idea than supported it.

The council decided to go ahead with the proposal for Onslow Gardens (ignoring Andred’s hill) but not for Stormont Park, thereby making Irish remarkably negotiable long before we get near a united Ireland.

Róisín Nic Liam’s report is right: Irish not only can, but must play a pivotal role in a new Ireland.

However in some aspects of our sectarian society, it remains a barrier to a unity of people.

So how do we get from here to where we want to be?

The answer might lie in Conradh na Gaeilge commissioning another piece of research – not about the future, but concentrating on changing the present.

Sudden border poll would be disastrous but entirely legal

SAM McBRIDE, Belfast Telegraph, May 16th, 2026

REFORM'S SUCCESS HAS SEEN US ENTER A WORLD THAT IS FAR MORE CONSTITUTIONALLY UNCERTAIN — AND THAT RESHAPES A BIG QUESTION THE IRISH GOVERNMENT HAS TRIED NOT TO ANSWER

A few days ago, I was on a panel at an event when a distinguished individual, from the floor, said something astonishing.

The event was an academic conference in Berlin and we were discussing the future of the island of Ireland. I mentioned the possibility that if Nigel Farage became Prime Minister, he might suddenly call a border poll — and if he did, he wouldn't be breaking the law or acting unconstitutionally. In fact, it would be wholly in keeping with the Good Friday Agreement.

David Donoghue, a retired senior Irish diplomat who had helped negotiate the Agreement, politely disputed this, saying that Farage would have to talk to the Irish Government and have some basis for believing there was a pro-unity majority.

He did not believe Westminster had the power to call a border poll for any reason. After some back and forth, during which it was clear he thought I was wildly mistaken, at the end of the event it took Prof Oran Doyle, a legal academic, to produce the Agreement and explain the reality which until that moment had evaded him: a border poll could be called in the morning for any reason whatsoever.

That might be unlikely, it may be stupid, but it most certainly would not be illegal.

Most focus in this area is on the compulsory border poll which the Secretary of State must call if they believe it would lead to a united Ireland; but there is also the permissive power to call a border poll at any time.

This latter possibility involves the continuation of the pre-existing power which had existed since partition. Indeed, it is the logical basis of sovereignty — almost any government has the power to call a referendum on any issue.

It was under this power that a border poll was held in 1973, even if it was boycotted by nationalists, producing the North Korean-esque figure of 99pc support for the Union.

And it was under this enduring power that in the early 2000s David Trimble pressed Tony Blair to hold a referendum on Irish unity — a position based not only on the expectation of a strong pro-Union vote, but also that, if held on the same day as an election, it would help the UUP.

I recount this story not to embarrass Donoghue; I have made far too many howlers of my own to cast stones at someone who's misunderstood what is a complex legal treaty.

As I understand it, Donoghue wasn't involved in negotiating this section of the Agreement and left his Northern Ireland-specific role (Irish Joint Secretary) in 1999. But he remained a major figure, going on to become Irish Ambassador to the UN and political director at the Department of Foreign Affairs, a role which gave him responsibility for all aspects of Ireland's foreign policy. He only retired in 2017, after which he wrote a book about the Agreement talks.

No plan?

While other Irish diplomats will be aware of the provision for a sudden border poll, this anecdote speaks to something profound: if even some of those in Dublin most versed in the Agreement don't understand how a plebiscite might happen, then how detailed could their planning be for such an eventuality?

The Irish Government essentially admits this: it says planning hasn't started. Even privately, current senior Irish officials insist they are unaware of so much as a bare-bones plan for what they might do if there was a sudden referendum.

If that were to happen, the Irish Government and wider nationalism would find themselves disastrously unprepared.

Governments plan for all manner of unwelcome possibilities, from pestilence to nuclear war. Yet it is the official position of the Irish Government that while it has contingency plans for things it doesn't want, it has no plan at all for what it supposedly does want: a united Ireland.

Its reason for not planning has been founded on responsibility, even if it dismays many northern nationalists. Dublin does not believe that a united Ireland is around the corner.

In this it is more accurate than those who for a decade have been selling the fantasy that a unity looms, whether borne on a tide of demographic change, Brexit, the collapse of the Union, Ireland's vast wealth or whatever the zeitgeist happens to be today. If unity is not imminent, then planning for it could involve pointlessly aggravating unionism when the state has more pressing priorities.

And if there isn't going to be a border poll for maybe a decade or two, then we can't really know how the world might then look. All of this has made considerable sense, even if it has understandably irked those keenest to remove the border.

But in the world we may have entered, the logic behind this stance is far less clear. Last week's breakthrough by Reform UK doesn't mean Nigel Farage will be Prime Minister, but it does prove that the polls were broadly right: British politics has been reshaped.

If Farage is not Prime Minister, he may well be in a governing coalition. To simply wish this away — as some who loathe Farage continue to do — is at this point delusional. It may not happen, but the job of governments is to plan for all plausible possibilities. If Farage was in power, there is the chance that he would call a sudden border poll either because he wanted rid of Northern Ireland, thus simplifying the harder Brexit he wants for Britain but which is stymied by the NI Protocol, or because he simply wants to disrupt the flow of wealth into the Republic, knowing that investors would take fright and almost the entire apparatus of the Irish Government would have to be directed towards preparing for something which might never happen.

Farage in Downing Street would also drastically increase the possibility of a sudden shift in public sentiment in Northern Ireland. Unionists smugly observing polling numbers which reliably show pro-Union support comfortably ahead of that for Irish unity risk disastrous complacency. A substantial segment of the pro-Union vote is now conditional; these are constitutional swing voters who, if they believe the UK is heading in a disastrous direction, could shift more suddenly than any previous generation.

Transparency

If the Irish Government was to start planning for unity, it would be wise to do so transparently, rather than authorising a furtive plan which would likely leak out and appear duplicitous, undermining other Irish Government policies such as the Shared Island Initiative, which it has said is agnostic on unity.

Even if announced publicly and framed with the utmost sensitivity, unionism would almost unanimously denounce the exercise, seeing it as a hostile act.

There would be considerable self-interested logic in this stance. After all, one of the greatest arguments against a united Ireland is that no one has a clue what on earth it might entail. Even the most basic questions — such as whether it would be a unitary state, whether Northern Ireland would continue to exist, or what its constitution would be — cannot be answered.

Yet, if there was to be some serious planning, there is at least one unexpected upside for unionism. Having last year co-written a book with Fintan O'Toole in which each of us both argue for and against a united Ireland, the process illuminated far more difficulties for nationalism than I'd previously considered. While making good arguments for both sides was easy, it became clear to me that many of the strongest arguments in favour of a united Ireland — which centre around the extraordinary rise of the Republic over recent decades — can be turned around as arguments against removing the border.

Surprisingly, the hardest argument to make was to voters in the Republic whose ancestors have built what is one of the world's most successful small nations. If the Republic is such a remarkable place, and if the border matters less and less, then why dissolve this country (for that is in effect what would be happening) and create a new one, especially when — even if violence can be avoided — that might involve economic instability, an influx of new citizens who feel aggrieved, and a host of painful cultural compromises?

The pro-unity argument becomes even harder to make when one considers that it is easier for an undecided voter to vote no than yes. If nationalism wins, Northern Ireland and the Republic as they are would both be over, never to return. No matter how disastrous unity might be, voters would have to live with the consequences.But if someone votes against unity, that is not final. Provided that there remains sufficient support for the idea, there can be another referendum after seven years, with that time used for more planning. There is therefore the possibility that even southern voters, who in polling indicate overwhelming support for Irish unity until confronted with the potential economic and cultural costs, might turn against the idea as they come to realise previously unconsidered realities, while tensions between northern and southern nationalists intensify.

The ultimate winner will be the side which learns from history. From the outset, unionism built what David Trimble described as a strong house but a cold house for Catholics. A paradoxical blend of sectarian arrogance and incessant fear blinded unionism to treating the nationalist minority fairly either because it was the right thing to do or out of pragmatic self-interest, realising that a state in which the vast majority of its inhabitants feel welcome is far more likely to endure.

Northern Ireland has endured, but it hasn't thrived. It contains much that is good — and much that now is better than it was even a few decades ago — but the extraordinary wealth and world-leading industrial prowess inherited at partition has been squandered.

Liberation from delusions

As Jack Sayers, the editor of the Belfast Telegraph in the 1960s, wrote in the years leading up to the Troubles: “The threat to Northern Ireland's future is not Mr [Harold] Wilson or Mr [Jack] Lynch or the IRA, or even nationalism. It comes from Protestant Ulstermen who will not allow themselves to be liberated from the delusion that every Roman Catholic is their enemy.”

For its part, nationalism entrenched partition by its actions even while florid flights of rhetoric demanded the border's removal. This began immediately: accepting the Treaty and then the Boundary Commission, entrenching the Catholic Church in public life in the Free State while banning divorce, erecting an economic border, leaving the Commonwealth, staying neutral against Hitler, refusing to use Stormont to advance nationalist interests, and on and on.

Even long into the Troubles as John Hume tried to shift the debate from uniting territory to uniting people, the historian Roy Foster observed of the Provisional movement: “'Uniting people' often seemed equally unrealistic, especially when the IRA periodically decided to bomb them to extinction.”

It is as awkward for nationalism as it is for unionism to observe that most damage to the Union has been self-inflicted by unionists rather than as the result of nationalist successes.

There is no inevitability to either unity happening or the Union surviving. Decisions, circumstances and ultimately our votes will determine the future.

Those who wish to remove the border should be most concerned at how little practical progress they have made since Brexit almost a decade ago. Yet everyone, whatever their view, should have some concern at the level of ignorance about even some basic elements of this dilemma. Unless you are an anarchist who wants to burn the place down if you don't get your way, it is in all our interests for our homeland to succeed, whatever the flag which happens to fly above it.

As anyone with even the most basic knowledge of Irish history can comprehend, this question is freighted with peril. If bungled, that could mean innocent people being slaughtered. Pretending that that is impossible or simply wishing it were not so isn't just irresponsible, but also immoral.

By simply having the status quo, unionism has the enormous benefit of inertia. Nationalism needs to work far harder to win; that involves knowing the rules it agreed to — and immense hard work.

Deaths from drugs rise to highest ever level

ALLAN PRESTON, Irish News, May 16th, 2026

More die from pregabalin than heroin

DRUG RELATED deaths in Northern Ireland are at their highest ever level, with 251 recorded in 2024.

Figures from the Northern Ireland Statistics and Research Agency show this includes 219 deaths from ‘drug misuse’ and has more than doubled since 2014. Drug misuse is understood to specifically involve the use of illicit drugs or abuse of medication.

Opioids were the most mentioned drug group on death certificates at 131, while the single most mentioned substance has become pregabalin at 101.

Also known as lyrica or buds on the black market, pregabalin is supposed to be used for treating anxiety, epilepsy and nerve pain.

Known to produce feelings of euphoria and relaxation, it can boost the effects of other drugs like heroin or opioids – but this risks fatal breathing problems.

Cocaine was mentioned in 71 deaths and was the most common substance in deaths involving only one drug.

New psychoactive substances were also mentioned on 66 death certificates ahead of drugs like heroin/morphine at 35 and ecstasy at seven.

West Belfast GP Dr Michael McKenna told The Irish News he was unsurprised pregabalin had become so widespread.

As well as more patients asking for a prescription or for help to get off it, he said others were simply ordering it online to their front door.

“I prescribe it less and less now. I don’t tend to initiate it and try to reduce the dose for those already on it,” he said.

“The withdrawal effects are up there with opioids in terms of their addictiveness.

“People like it because it makes them feel drunk but they become dependent in a number of weeks.

“It’s also the impact it has in combination with the other drugs.”

He said “the classic pyramid” now being seen among addicts around inner Belfast was a cocktail of opioids, benzodiazepines and pregabalin.

Figures represent ‘a collective failure to get a grip on this crisis’

“But the initial risk is your source and whether it’s actually pregabalin that you’re getting.

“Often a lot of these more powerful opioids are being laced into the medication, then there’s the dose that people are taking it at.

“It’s often in much higher levels than you would recommend in a prescription and when you mix it with other stuff, then you’re risking respiratory depression so you just stop breathing and die.”

Independent Belfast councillor Paul McCusker added that easier access and a lack of early intervention programmes meant more young people in the city were using “high level drugs” like heroin and crack cocaine.

Queen’s University researcher Dr Nina O’Neill specialises in substance abuse and mental health.

“These are striking figures, especially when you look back at the number of pregabalin deaths in 2014 at five compared to 101 in 2024,” she said.

“I think it’s due to a number of factors like changes in drug markets, it’s more available now and people will be taking it to avoid withdrawals as well as a substitute for other drugs.

Dangerous

“We know it’s particularly dangerous alongside other depressants like opioids, benzodiazepines and alcohol.

“It is very much about looking at measures like harm reduction, early intervention and really educating young people about the dangers of mixing pregabalin with other drugs.”

Ulster Unionist deputy leader, Diana Armstrong MLA, commented: “These numbers represent not only individual tragedies but a collective failure to get a grip on this crisis, and I share the frustration of many at the lack of meaningful action from the drugs taskforce.”

Representing Fermanagh and South Tyrone, she said easy access to drugs in rural areas had also become “staggering.”

“This is no longer a problem we can pretend is confined to our towns and cities. Today’s figures also lay bare the stark link between deprivation and drug-related death, with our most deprived communities bearing a wholly disproportionate burden.

“That demands a response rooted in prevention, treatment and recovery, alongside proper enforcement.

“We owe it to those we have lost, and to the many still struggling, to do considerably more than is currently being done.

Sex predators need to be named and shamed

GAIL WALKER, Belfast Telegraph, May 16th, 2026

One minute I was chattering and laughing, walking in bright sunshine with an elderly man who was taking me to see their family's new pup in a barn. The next, the door had slammed shut behind me and I was grappling to free myself from him. I was barely a teenager. Four decades on, I remember every detail.

Moving from the glorious summer's day outside into the gloomy interior left me momentarily blinded.

It was light, then dark. That was the horrible sensation, followed by rising panic and bewilderment. Before he had even reached towards me or uttered a word, I knew I was in trouble. Instinct told me everything was wrong. My stomach lurched.

I was trapped and alone — apart from the old man who was transmogrifying into something sinister. He wasn't who I thought he was. I remember trying to make sense of that detail. It was part of the confusion. Then: no one knows where you are. You need to get out of here.

Because of the abrupt way that he pulled me round to face him and the slight slope of the floor and the darkness, I lost my bearings. Where was the door? I looked around frantically. Glimmers of sunshine broke through cracks in the wooden walls, but all I could see were dust motes suspended in air.

As his leering face loomed closer and he started mumbling claptrap about how fond he was of me, my eyes adjusted to the dimness. I realised I needed to feel the ground rise beneath my feet, that the door would be in that direction.

I found it, pushed hard, mercifully it opened. Outside again. Safe.

There was the distant hum of traffic. The birds chirruping in trees overhead. A lawn mower roaring into life some distance away. Everything was the same, but completely different too.

I had learnt one of the most valuable lessons life had to teach me. As they say in the ring: “Protect yourself at all times.” There would be no more carefree excursions to see pups. No more ruses.

Nothing untoward actually happened to me, beyond the clumsy attempt to grab me. I escaped, so my encounter was at the very minor scale of such events.

Deep trauma

I have interviewed people who didn't escape and suffered serious assault. I have friends who have survived it and continue to cope with deep trauma.

My relatively insignificant experience still replays with such clarity in my head. Those who are actually assaulted must suffer terribly.

In addition, many have to watch their tormentor continue to go about his business, reputation intact, like the victims of convicted sex offender William Lloyd-Lavery.

He thrust himself into the spotlight, launching a high-profile memoir claiming to be a grandson of murdered Russian Tsar Nicholas II.

Even after that was exposed as bunkum, he enjoyed a career as a political adviser with the Ulster Unionist Party. Astonishing.

And then, 50 years later, when Lloyd-Lavery's victims finally did get him into the dock, up popped character references on his behalf. Such things are part of the armoury of the offender in court. In abuse cases, they are especially insulting because “good character” is often the cover for offending.

His cousin, David Lavery — chief executive of the Law Society of Northern Ireland — assured a Crown Court judge that Lloyd-Lavery was “a person of sound judgment and good character”. He has since apologised for a serious error of judgment.

David Campbell — former UUP chair and founding member of the Loyalist Communities Council — said he had no regrets about providing a reference.

He said that he had wanted to ask the court whether there was “a possibility of a minimum sentence, rather than a maximum sentence. I mean, given that the scale of the offences weren't dramatically huge”.

Mr Campbell continued: “They were also 50 years ago, which I know a lot of people think is irrelevant. It's down to the court to determine his sentence, but importantly his wife, daughter and son maintain his innocence.”

He also queried the actions of the parents of the abused schoolgirls, saying “he would have pushed the school harder” if it had involved his daughter.

In fact, they did everything they could.

Asked if he would like to say anything to Lloyd-Lavery's victims, Mr Campbell said: “In what way?”

Former teacher Lloyd-Lavery (77), from Richmond Avenue, Lisburn, was jailed for two years for sexually abusing four schoolgirls aged 13 and 14 between 1975 and 1979 at Richmond Lodge school in Belfast.

One victim described him “hunting her like prey”. Another recalled an assault in a stationery cupboard where he touched her genitals, leaving her “frozen in horror”.

That sounds “dramatically huge” to most people, Mr Campbell. With five decades of no justice piling on the trauma.

Citing Lloyd-Lavery's age and health, Mr Campbell appealed to the judge for “leniency”. He also said that he felt for his wife and family.

But of course the victims here are those whom Lloyd-Lavery abused, two of whom, Nicola Bannon and Lynne D'Arcy, bravely waived their right to anonymity to call for changes to the law to prevent sex offenders from using character references as mitigation.

Hunted youngsters

Justice Minister Naomi Long's comments this week that she wanted to end or limit good character references in cases of domestic abuse and sexual crime are to be welcomed.

So many of my friends, female and male, were hunted youngsters.

Close calls. Lucky escapes. Sometimes not so lucky. Creepy older men you didn't want to get stuck on your own with. The ones who were too tactile, slinging their arm round your waist. A dad whose offers of a lift home were to be avoided. Menaces everywhere.

Friends dreaded the weekly evening lesson from a well-respected man who was obsessed with one of them and spent the half hour chasing her round the room. We dubbed him “Benny Hill”, but the laughs were rueful. He was repulsive.

We were cynical and world-weary beyond our years. None of our difficulties occurred in school, but we spent far too much time when we should have been focusing on GCSEs working out strategies for fending off creeps instead.

There was no alarm to sound. Childline didn't exist. The language of “safeguarding” was decades away. The police force, the RUC, equated to the Troubles, as did most crime. It was difficult for parents. It felt like drawing attention to it was as much of a problem as the problem itself.

Male friends had to dodge a predatory priest notorious in the parish. What about telling their mums or dads? “Don't be ridiculous, what were they going to do?”

Yes, there were warnings about “stranger danger”, like the town's so-called misfits. One such eccentric would approach us with the opening remark that he had no ill intentions towards us.

But the thing is, it was true. He was harmless. The real danger was actually hiding out among the white collars and ties, the well-regarded figures in the community, adept at using their good reputations as cover.

As well as the actual criminal behaviour which can succeed in destroying lives far into the future, there is the collusion of respectable people in society queueing up to diminish the assaults, provide flawed references and cast aspersions on the victims and their families.

They find that preferable to admitting to themselves they were friends with a molester.

Our culture, where safeguarding rhetoric exists side by side with enabling machismo, has to be completely changed.

The old talk of someone being a “bad boy” or “philanderer”, “having an eye for the girls”, is still too prevalent in our blokey society.

Thankfully, we now have words like “abuser”, “paedophile”, “groomer” and “predator” to describe these criminals — and we need to start using them to their faces.

Doorbell cam footage of race attacks described as ‘sickening’

MARK ROBINSON, Irish News, May 16th, 2026

A FAMILY in Derry has been “tormented” with racist abuse from children as young as 10 in recent weeks – with “mud and water balloons” also thrown at their home.

The family with young children is originally from the Philippines and is currently living in the Strathfoyle area on the outskirts of the city.

It comes as human rights campaigners warned this week that racist violence in the north is “spiralling out of control”, with the number of race hate crimes reported to police now at unprecedented levels and averaging at four reports a day.

Yesterday, the PSNI said that they received a report that a family living in the Strathfoyle area of Derry had been receiving “verbal abuse over a number of weeks”.

“It was also reported to police that mud and water balloons had been thrown at the property,” a spokesperson said.

A still image from the doorbell cam footage.

“A number of young people have been spoken to by police in relation to this matter, which is being treated as a racially motivated hate crime.”

Sinn Féin councillor Alex Duffy said that the family had been “tormented” and that he had been shown doorbell footage which was “sickening”.

“I have offered my support to the family and have highlighted this incident with local youth and community organisations, as well as local schools,” he said.

“There can be no place for racism in our society.

“The family know this is not representative of the people here and just want to live in peace.

“Strathfoyle is very proud of its mixed multicultural community and although an isolated incident it needs brought to an end immediately.”

The PSNI has said that local officers will “continue to engage with the community” but added that “racially motivated crime is unacceptable in today’s society and police will deal with any reports robustly”.

Orange Grand Master's death caused by 'momentary lapse in concentration' - coroner

CLAIRE DICKSON, Belfast Telegraph, May 16th, 2026

An accident that killed a well-known Orangeman was likely caused by a momentary lapse in concentration, an inquest has heard.

Sidney McIldoon, from Portadown, died after a collision in Co Armagh.

Mr McIldoon, a former past grand lecturer of the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, would have turned 85 two days after he died.

At the time, the Orange Order's most senior figure, then Grand Master Edward Stevenson, led tributes to a “loyal and true friend and a great champion of the Orange cause”.

An inquest into Mr McIldoon's death was held at Omagh courthouse yesterday.

It heard Mr McIldoon was born in 1939 and was a retired prison officer.

Mr McIldoon's family were present in the courtroom as well as the driver of the tractor involved in the collision with Mr McIldoon's car on February 13, 2024.

The accident happened on the Cornascriebe Road between Tandragee and Hamiltonsbawn.

The coroner's court heard evidence from forensic pathologist Dr Marjorie Turner who performed an autopsy on Mr McIldoon on February 15, 2024.

Dr Turner said Mr McIldoon had sustained extensive injuries to his chest and pelvis which could have caused his death.

She also told the court about significant blood loss suffered by Mr McIldoon, noting that lacerations to his liver were the most severe injuries he sustained.

The court also heard from a PSNI detective constable who was at the scene following the collision.

He noted damage to the driver's side of Mr McIldoon's car and said he noticed a dent in one of the tractor's tyres.

He also said his attention was initially drawn to the tractor involved, which was lying in the field and the collision was clearly substantial.

Coroner Joe McCrisken delivered his verdict at the end of the inquest.

He made reference to the Air Ambulance's presence at the scene after the collision, stating that everything was done that could have been done to save Mr McIldoon's life.

He concluded Mr McIldoon's vehicle had moved into the oncoming lane of the Cornascriebe Road and collided with the tractor.

The tractor, the coroner concluded, had tried in vain to avoid the collision.

Mr McIldoon was extracted from the vehicle and pronounced dead at the scene.

The coroner noted that the deceased's heart was enlarged, but there was no evidence found of a heart attack.

He noted a probable momentary lack of concentration on Mr McIldoon's part and his moving into the oncoming lane.

Mr McCrisken also stated that there was nothing more the tractor driver could have done to avoid the collision.