Call for unity as slain teenager laid to rest

ALL political leaders in the North must speak with one "united voice" to defend the right to life, mourners at the funeral of murdered Catholic teenager Gerard Lawlor heard yesterday.

Patrick Walsh, the Bishop of Down and Connor, told a packed St Gerard's Church in Antrim Rd, Belfast, that Mr Lawlor was killed simply because he was a Catholic.

"Sunday night was a night of manifest raw sectarian hatred which could have resulted in multiple murders and which, indeed, did culminate in the murder of Gerard, a totally innocent young man, murdered for one reason and one reason only that he was a Catholic," Bishop Walsh said.