Boy weeps over murder bid charge

A teenager wept today as he was charged with attempted murder which left a youth fighting for his life after a knife attack in west Belfast.

Relatives also comforted him when he appeared before a magistrate in the city before being remanded in custody to a youth detention centre.

The 14-year-old is expected to apply for bail later.

A Royal Ulster Constabulary detective said that when charged the youth, who cannot be named for legal reasons, made no reply.

The policeman told magistrate Desmond Perry that he believed he could connect the accused with the charge.

The boy’s father and two sisters were present to comfort him as he was led away. He wept in front of the magistrate.

Meanwhile a spokeswoman for the Royal Victoria Hospital, Belfast, said that the victim, Thomas McErlean, aged 15, remained in a critical condition following the fracas, which broke out at Ardmonagh Gardens, Turf Lodge late on Saturday night.

Another youth sustained a punctured lung during the same incident.

The victim’s father, Thomas McErlean Sr, was one of three republican mourners killed at Milltown Cemetery, West Belfast, by loyalist paramilitary Michael Stone 13 years ago.

The Ulster Defence Association man launched a gun and grenade attack during the funerals of three IRA members killed by an undercover SAS team at Gibraltar in March 1988.