The jury in the Melissa Mahon murder trial has heard that there was contact between the accused's mobile phone and the girl's mobile on the day she went missing from the care of the Health Service Executive.

An application by the State for the confiscation of €670,000 as the estimated profits from five brothels run by a former cruise-ship chef has been refused by Judge Frank O’Donnell at Dublin Circuit Criminal Court.

The eldest brother of the Mulhall sisters who killed their mother’s boyfriend has been jailed for five years for robbing two prostitutes in Dublin apartments.

A bachelor farmer who beat up and shot dead a Traveller on his property in Co Mayo felt suicidal afterwards, a court heard today.