A pensioner questioned about the disappearance of two Belfast schoolboys nearly 27 years ago has been released from police custody, writes Michael Bradley in Belfast.
The 69-year-old man was sent back to Maghaberry Prison, Co Antrim, where he is serving a sentence for unrelated sex offences. Police are excavating the gardens and ground floors of two west Belfast houses in their search for Thomas Spence (11) and John Rodgers (13), who disappeared on their way to school in November 1974.
Extensions had been built on both properties in Rodney Drive, and police have brought in heavy cutting equipment to break through a layer of concrete seven inches thick.
Det Sgt Mervyn Bryans, leading the investigation, said a new witness had come forward and corroborated much of what police already knew.