UNIONIST claims that firearms and explosives were present on the Garvaghy Road during the recent stand-off between residents and the Orange Order have been branded “sensationalist and dangerous” by residents. Last Friday evening the Secretary of State banned the Orange Order parade down the Garvaghy Road after a two-week protest by residents and their supporters. Last night on the Nolan Show on BBCNI DUP leader Gavin Robinson repeated claims that that decision was based on the threat of “violence, disorder and terror” adding that he has raised  publicly “rumours” that “there were guns available on the streets”. In a statement this afternoon Breandán Mac Cionnaith from the Garvaghy Road Residents’ Coalition said that "such sensationalist and dangerous claims are completely false", adding that they were "totally unfounded and are designed with the sole purpose of creating and heightening tensions, suspicions and fear."

A memorial dedicated to victims of the Sean Graham bookmakers atrocity was defaced again overnight in the second such attack in six weeks. 

FORMER DUP leader Jeffrey Donaldson was today sentenced to 15 years in prison for 18 charges of non-recent child sexual abuse crimes, including the rape of a child under the age of 13.

A Chairde,

A DETAILED report into the murder of two Catholic factory workers in North Belfast by the UDA has been published.