THE priest officiating at the funeral mass yesterday of elderly horse trader Christy Hanley, who was tied up and beaten to death in his Co Westmeath home, appealed to the public to aid the murder investigation.

GARDAÍ yesterday said serious injuries on a woman found dead in Athlone last Friday were not self inflicted.

A former Roscommon garda has received a three-year suspended sentence at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court for his role in an insurance fraud conspiracy arising out of a false traffic accident.

A former garda accused of involvement in a £151,000 insurance fraud conspiracy in 1996 told detectives he saw a car and a truck lying in a ditch on a new Co Leitrim bypass.