The BelTel

The prosecution in the Chloe Mitchell murder trial has laid out their case.

21-year-old Chloe was found dead in Ballymena days after going missing in June 2023.

30-year-old Brandon Rainey of James Street in Ballymena is charged with murder and attempting to prevent the burial of her body.

He denies the charges.

Today in court Mr David Russell KC said there was a “wealth of evidence that will show beyond reasonable doubt” that Rainey murdered Chloe Mitchell.

Allison Morris was in court.

This podcast will include details of a mu...

The Democrats have stormed back into power, seizing control of both the House and Senate and delivering a political blow to Donald Trump.

But while the mid-terms may be over, the race to define America’s future is only just beginning.

Is Trump now a lame-duck president, or can he still dominate the Republican Party from the White House?

And as cracks begin to appear in the MAGA coalition, who is ready to take up the mantle?

With Republicans facing difficult questions about their future and Democrats al...

After weeks of hints and speculation Carla Lockhart has finally quit the DUP. In a letter penned entitled ‘A renewed vision for unionism’, the Upper Bann MP said she wanted to “be a politician whose word means something”.

Gavin Robinson says the only winner from further divisions within unionism is Sinn Féin.

Is unionism really in ‘meltdown’, is now the time for unionist unity, and will Carla Lockhart eventually join the TUV?

Ciarán Dunbar is joined by Belfast Telegraph's Andrew Madden, former editor of the News Letter and unionist comme...

When Richard Moore was 10 years old a British Army captain shot him in the face with a rubber bullet.

The Derry School boy lost his sight completely in an instant but twenty years ago Richard met Charles, the soldier who shot him, and forgave him. They have been friends ever since.

Richard grew up to establish the charity Children in Crossfire in 1996 with the goal of supporting vulnerable children growing up in the crossfire of poverty and injustice.

His work has brought him close the Tibetan spiritual leader, the Dali Lama.

...

Islandmagee is a quiet civil parish on the east coast of Northern Ireland.

But in 1711, a newcomer to the area begins to have fits, regurgitates pins and buttons, and suddenly dies.

In the weeks following her death, eight woman and one man are found guilty of witchcraft at a local Courthouse – one man is executed. It was the last witchcraft trial in Ireland.

Olivia Peden speaks to Dr Andrew Sneddon of Ulster University, and Martina Devlin, the author of “The House where it happened” about this mysterious event.

This p...

On the 30th of October 30, 1976, two Belfast Telegraph delivery men Charles Corbett and John Maguire were shot dead in north Belfast.

John Maguire's ten-year-old son witnessed his father's murder. The boy himself was wounded in the leg.

The men were gunned down by very young members of the UVF.

One of gunmen apologised – but fifty years later he couldn't even remember their names.

Liam Tunney tells the story.

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DUP leader Gavin Robinson says Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly will quit joint engagements with First Minister Michelle O’Neill - but he won’t be pulling her out of the executive.

The DUP's party officers met on Thursday to discuss their options.

Before the meeting, Upper Bann MP Carla Lockhart published a letter to the party making it clear – that if it didn't pull Emma Little-Pengelly out of the executive, she would take her "own course".

Lockhart insists that Michelle O’Neill must be removed from office over Sinn Féin's p...

Incidents of violent drug-debt intimidation are rising in Ireland – and the methods are becoming more concerning and elaborate.

Brutal enforcers are now using 'disappearing' video technology on social media platforms to capture and distribute graphic footage of torture.

The targeted aggression goes beyond those allegedly in arrears, with innocent friends and family members increasingly caught up in the cruel crossfire.

What are the gardaí doing about it?

Is there a class issue at play?

And what about the incidents we're not hearing about?

Fio...

A judge has dismissed an Orange Order against the Secretary of State’s decision to ban the Drumcree parade from going down the Garvaghy Road.

But Mr Justice Scoffield said those against the march should take “no particular joy in the outcome”.

He said that a lawful decision-making process has established the lodge’s right to parade in law.

He also told the court that Sir Chris Bryant’s decision was lawful but highly regrettable that it happened in the circumstances it did.

And he threw some shade on n...

The Upper Bann MP Carla Lockhart has been to the forefront of Northern Ireland's politics ever since the re-emergence of the Drumcree Parade issue.

The DUP-woman has stridently defended the rights of Orangemen to march down the Garvaghy Road in the face of nationalist opposition.

She has been clear - the DUP must get Sinn Féin's Michelle O'Neill out of power over her actions in the Garvaghy protest.

The problem is, the party leader Gavin Robinson disagrees – so what happens next?

Who is Carla Lockhart, what are...

Jeffrey Donaldson was doing paid work for the ministry of defence in Africa even as acute political turmoil was engulfing his party at home in Northern Ireland.

Why was the then DUP leader undertaking sensitive work in dictator-led Cameroon just a week after he himself collapsed Stormont in 2022?

Why was he helping sell arms in Egypt alongside a British general?

Why did a special forces officer say he’d worked with Donaldson before?

Profound political questions remain over who all the now convicted paedophile was working for – alongside conc...

The Metropolitan Police in London are investigating Jeffrey Donaldson over a rape allegation

It is alleged to have happened in the former MP's Westminster office.

Donaldson is currently serving a prison sentence in Maghaberry for 18 counts of child sex abuse, including the rape of a child.

The former DUP leader Donaldson was sentenced last week to 15 years but will serve just half of that term in prison.

Ciarán Dunbar is joined by Allison Morris.

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Offers made by Portadown District to allow Orangemen to walk the Garvaghy Road have been revealed in court – including a 4AM march, accompanied by a residents’ protest.

The court has finished hearing submissions during the legal challenge to the Secretary of State’s ban on the Drumcree parade, with Mr Justice Scoffield due to deliver his judgement next week. On Monday the court heard the security risks that were taken into account, with it being “almost certain” that dissident republicans had attended the protest, and “possible” that they had access to firearms.

Olivia Peden is joined by A...

Perforated Ulster, Give My Head Peace, and The Long and the Short of it, all produced by the Hole in the Wall gang are being axed by the BBC.

The Blame Game has also been culled.

The BBC is making major cuts across the corporation as budget cuts take hold.

BBC bosses say they have to make difficult decisions – but the cuts mean there will be no more local comedy on our screens.

Ciarán Dunbar is joined by Tim McGarry and Damon Quinn and Michael McDowell from the Hole in the...

The Burkes are back, but this time it's not Enoch grabbing the headlines, it's his sister Ammi.

In 2019, Ammi Burke was dismissed from her role at one of Ireland’s most prestigious law firms, Arthur Cox, after just over three years with the company.

Seven years, multiple legal battles and countless court appearances later, Ms Burke wants her job back. She and her former employer are facing off at the Workplace Relations Commission.

So, what exactly happened between the two sides? And why is a dispute that began years ago st...

The PSNI has released the audio statements of Jeffrey Donaldson’s victims, Victim A and Victim B.

Their voices have been artificially generated to protect the victims’ identity.

On Thursday, the former DUP leader was sentenced to 15 years in prison after being found guilty of 18 charges of child sex abuse.

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Jeffrey Donaldson received a 15 year sentence in prison for his crimes. He was given 11 years for rape against Victim B and four years for all offences against Victim A, to be served consecutively.

The former MP and ex-DUP leader was sentenced in Newry Courthouse on Thursday morning.

However, later on Thursday after the Lady Chief Justice confirmed Donaldson will actually walk free in seven-and-a-half years.

That is because the crimes were committed before the law changed in 2008, so he will automatically be entitled to 50pc remission of his sentence.

He was...

It was in April 1992 when Patrick 'Patsy' O'Sullivan called into his brother Jerry's home like it was any other day, but it’s a day that will forever remain etched in Jerry’s memory.

Patrick went missing from his home in Co Kerry that year, and despite extensive searches and emotional appeals, efforts to find him proved fruitless.

It would take the O'Sullivan family 34 years to find out the truth.

Tessa Fleming is joined by Kerryman journalist Sinead Kelleher and by Jerry O'Sullivan, Patsy’s brother, to discuss his disappearance and ho...

The parading crisis in Portadown seems over on the ground, but it is very much alive in the courts, on the airwaves, and in politics.

The Northern Ireland Secretary of State Chris Bryant stepped in on Friday to ban the Portadown Orange lodge from marching down the Garvaghy Road, now the Orange Order is challenging that decision in the courts.

On Monday afternoon, the Court of Appeal dismissed a challenge from Garvaghy residents to the Parades Commission’s decision to allow the parade.

In Stormont, First Minister Michelle O’Neill will...

The St Andrews Agreement was signed twenty years ago on 13 October 2006.

Officially. it just amended the Belfast / Good Friday Agreement, but it did bring about some profound changes in Northern Ireland’s politics.

It saw the DUP and Ian Paisley signing up to the peace process.

Sinn Féin bought into policing, agreeing to work with the PSNI; the DUP agreed to go into government with them.

The two parties have dominated Stormont politics ever since.

Ciarán Dunbar is joined by political commentator Davi...

Northern Ireland’s Agriculture and Environment Minister Andrew Muir interviewed by Belfast Telegraph Northern Ireland Editor Sam McBride, discussing how what he says has been a ‘catastrophic’ agricultural policy went disastrously wrong in the race for cheap meat... and whether he is inadvertently embedding what he’s seeking to reverse.

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In recent weeks, the 2020 French hack into the secret gangster phone network Encrochat has continued to see Northern Ireland drug dealers sent to Maghaberry.

Multiple prison sentences have been handed down to some significant figures from Northern Ireland’s criminal world.

Gangsters like ‘cute hur’, ‘mint wind’ and ‘ultra gold’ are just some of those who went down after the notorious platform spilled its secrets.

Ciarán Dunbar is joined by Belfast Telegraph’s crime correspondent Allison Morris.

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The stand-off between the Drumcree Orange men and the Garvaghy residents continues.

In Belfast on Monday – a court reserved judgment on the residents’ renewed application to stop the march.

The march – and the protest has sharply divided our politicians. Some fear real damage is being done to community relations.

And in other news the SDLP in Armagh has seen fit to dump its siting MLA – Justin McNulty – why?

Ciarán Dunbar joined by our political editor, Suzanne Breen.

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He was once known as the Right Honourable Sir Jeffrey Donaldson but is now known as inmate number E5032.

Donaldson once proudly walked the corridors of Westminster, ate in fancy restaurants, and commanded media attention.

But now he spends his days behind bars in Maghaberry, reading, doing jigsaws and doing art.

The home in Dromore, in which he lived in with wife Eleanor, who was found to have aided and abetting child sexual abuse, has appeared on the market for a modest £650,000.

Donaldson was convicted of 18 charges concerning child sexual abuse i...

A fearless investigative reporter who exposed the criminal underworld behind Northern Ireland’s paramilitaries, O’Hagan had made dangerous enemies on both sides, but no one has ever been convicted of his murder.

Joining Fionnán Sheehan is Sunday World Northern editor Richard Sullivan and Irish Independent special correspondent Paul Williams, as they remember their friend and colleague and examine why, 25 years on, his killing remains unsolved.

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The standoff between the Orangemen on Drumcree and the residents of the Garvaghy Road continues in Portadown.

Negotiations involving the Secretary of State Chris Bryant, the Orange Order and Garvaghy Road residents have so far failed to reach an agreement.

Garvaghy Road residents' spokesman Breandán Mac Cionnaith, confirmed on Wednesday that there was a document on the table. However, both Jamie Bryson and Carla Lockhart said the Portadown district won’t be accepting any deal that sees them walk away from their right to parade down the Garvaghy Road.

Sinn Féin's Mary...

In 1990, Thomas ‘Slab’ Murphy lost his seminal libel case against the Sunday Times.

But formerly secret files reveal the south Armagh republican was actually expected to win it – and that the paper was considering throwing in the towel.

But a tactical error by Murphy led to the paper deciding to fight – and not settle, costing him a fortune.

Ciarán Dunbar is joined by Sam McBride.

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There is a stalemate in Portadown and deep division in Stormont.

On the Orange side, the issue is the rights of a small number of people to march their traditional route – backed by a legal ruling.

On the Garvaghy Road, a community feels that march is sectarian harassment - and a relic of another age.

This is a local issue, but one which deep historical resonances, and one which many fear has brought Northern Ireland to the political brink.

Unionists accuse nationalists of not accepting the rule of law, while nationalists ac...

When journalist Siobhan Fenton was headhunted by Sinn Féin in 2020 she was an outsider.

Entering the party press office in Dublin, she was from Belfast, and didn’t support IRA violence.

At the time Sinn Fein was soaring, with Mary Lou McDonald expected to eventually become Ireland’s first female Taoiseach.

But that hasn’t happened. Instead, the party’s momentum faltered – although it remains the biggest party on the island.

What goes on inside of one of Ireland’s most secretive party, and how is the new gener...

The Parades Commission has given go ahead for Drumcree Orange march down the Garvaghy Road - but with stringent conditions.

Permission has been granted for no more than 35 people, including five named marshals, to take part in the parade, which will depart Drumcree Church at 8am on Sunday September 27.

Nationalists are outraged by the decision; unionists have welcomed it.

Ciarán Dunbar is joined by the Belfast Telegraph's security correspondent, Allison Morris.

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The former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson should serve at least 10 years in prison, a court in Newry has heard.

The remarks were made during a submission hearing for disgraced former DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson.

The former MP was convicted of a series of historical sexual offences earlier this year.

He was brought from Maghaberry high security prison to court for the hearing.

Submissions were made from prosecutors about the length of prison term he should serve.

Donaldson (63) had already been warned to expect a significant custodial term.

...

Gary Anderson is a dangerous murderer –and he’s on the run. The Derry man had been granted compassionate leave for his father's funeral, even though his brother Sean, guilty of the same murder, wasn’t.

The 29-year-old was sentenced to a minimum tariff of 15 years for his role in the murder of father-of-five Karol Kelly in 2018.

The manhunt continues on both sides of the border as we wonder why Anderson was granted the leave in the first place.

Olivia Peden is joined by our crime correspondent Allison Morris.

...

 “We’ll forget her soon enough.” That is the extraordinary comment Charles Spencer, Princess Diana's brother, claims King Charles made in the days following her death. Now, Spencer’s new book has reignited old tensions and prompted a rare response from Buckingham Palace.

Daily Mail features writer Fred Kelly joins Kevin Doyle to ask why Spencer is speaking out now, whether his claims stack up and what this latest royal row means for Diana’s enduring legacy.

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Johnny Adair, commonly referred to as ‘Mad dog Adair’, was one the most well-known terror bosses of the Troubles. He said his war was aimed at the IRA, but innocent Catholics were more often than not his real victims.

His C Company of the west Belfast UDA also turned their guns on their fellow loyalists.

Who is Mad dog Adair, what does he believe, and how does he view his murderous reign? 

Ciarán Dunbar is joined by Aaron Edwards, a Senior Lecturer in Defence and International Affairs a...

William McGrath, was an influential loyalist, founder of the paramilitary group Tara, and a hardline evangelical Protestant. 

He was also a notorious predatory paedophile who rape dozens of young boys. 

Widely known as the ‘Beast of Kincora’ McGrath was convicted of abuse at the notorious east Belfast boys’ home and jailed in 1981. 

Now an audio tape of McGrath has emerged after more than half a century. In it he espouses an extreme ideology, inter-mixed with mythology, and fueled by religion. 

The Belfast Telegraph's Northern Ireland edito...

On September the 15th, 1976, the Belfast Telegraph offices in Belfast centre was bombed by the Provisional IRA. Journalists were clattering at their typewriters when the second evacuation warning of the day went out on the Tannoy. Following the evacuation, a bomb in a van exploded in a loading bay, before many employees had the chance to get out. One of them – 64-year-old production worker Joe Paton - who'd been in a locker room above the bay - died from his injuries four days later. 

Ciarán Dunbar is joined by former Belfast Telegraph journalists Billy Graham and...

The jury in the inquest into the death of Noah Donohoe has found that the teenager died on the night of his disappearance, meaning that the PSNI’s response to his disappearance did not contribute to his death.  

However, the jury did find that police failings impacted on their ability to come to a conclusion in the inquest and found that the Department of Infrastructure “erred” in its management of the culvert in which the teenager died. 

But it also found that it was not probable that the Department’s management of the culver...

Once Ireland's richest man, Seán Quinn has returned to tell his story once again, this time through his new podcast, The Quinn Files. 

Fionnán Sheahan is joined by Sunday Independent’s Liam Collins and the Irish Independent’s Sean Pollock to examine Quinn's latest account of the events that transformed him from billionaire businessman to one of the most controversial figures of post-crash Ireland. 

From the extraordinary success of the Quinn Group to the collapse of Anglo Irish Bank, prison and life after bankruptcy, they ask whether Quinn's latest intervention brings fresh in...

In September 1956 a Crossgar schoolboy made a shocking discovery after peering into a hen house and locking eyes with a child. The eyes belonged to seven-year-old Kevin Halfpenny – but he has been better known ever since as ‘the hen house boy’.

Robbed of human interaction – he seemed to have learned his behavior from the chickens around him. His widowed mother Margaret Halfpenny was arrested and pleaded guilty to neglect. 

70 years later, the heartbreaking story has been surrounded by folklore. 

Olivia Peden is joined by Belfast Telegraph Journalist Kurtis Reid.  

Hosted o...

A senior DUP member set out their explicit support for violence - just weeks before the Good Friday Agreement.  

Files released in the National Archives in Kew have revealed the details of a politician’s comments to a government official - the individual wasn’t named but there were clues to their identity. 

It’s also been revealed that First Minister David Trimble was being paid thousands of pounds more than the deputy first Minister, Seamus Mallon, a year after the agreement – despite the roles being equal.  

Ciarán Dunbar is joined by S...