Eight undercover British soldiers were at the scene of a high-profile killing carried out by loyalist paramilitaries in the North, a dramatic new report has revealed.

A journalist won the right today to withhold information about the Real IRA from police after a judge ruled that her life would be in danger if she was forced to hand it over.

A leading journalist in the North told a court today she was not prepared to put herself under sentence of death from the Real IRA by handing information to the police about the terrorists’ murder of two soldiers.

A sharp rise in the number of burglaries and thefts was linked to the recession by police today.