A Limerick man has been acquitted by the Special Criminal Court of involvement in an assault during which a 53 year-old was nailed to a kitchen floor.

The Special Criminal Court trial of a man accused of assaulting and falsely imprisoning another man has been listening to evidence of garda interviews conducted with the suspect.

Two Limerick men who pleaded guilty to a "depraved and barbaric" assault during which a 53-year-old man was nailed to a kitchen floor have both been jailed for three years.

A judge has awarded a grieving Traveller widow and her two brothers €30,000 in libel damages over a newspaper story which claimed efforts were made to bring home, from Germany, the woman’s late husband’s remains in the back of a van.

Three members of the Traveller community from Rathkeale claim a newspaper report implicated them in drunken riotous behaviour after a close relative died on holiday in Germany and that they tried to have the body shipped home in the back of a van.