DUP furious over councillor's arrest

Police in the North were accused of making a “sensationalist” arrest yesterday after detaining a hardline loyalist Belfast city councillor over remarks she made about a disputed parade.

Ruth Patterson, 57, a member of first minister Peter Robinson’s Democratic Unionist Party, was held in relation to offences concerning the sending of grossly offensive communications and other serious criminal offences in relation to intimidation and encouraging criminal acts, according to the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI).

Earlier she had to apologise after saying that a fictional terrorist attack on a republican parade in which senior Sinn Féin members would be killed would provide “a great service to Northern Ireland”.