FORMER British police officers are to be recruited to assess the criminal investigation into solicitor Rosemary Nelson’s murder in Northern Ireland, it emerged yesterday.

A public inquiry into the loyalist murder of solicitor Rosemary Nelson is getting underway today more than six years after her death.

Ulster Unionist party leader David Trimble tonight beat off a motion of no confidence in him as MP in his own constituency.

Thousands of people from Northern Ireland will pay their respects to Britain's Queen Mother when books of condolence are opened in towns and cities today.