Teen girls face life sentence for brutal murder

Two teenage girls are facing life sentences for the brutal murder of a Northern Ireland man whose father was shot dead by loyalist paramilitaries.

Maxine Breakspear, 19, and Rochelle Etherington, 18, mounted a savage attack on drunken 42-year-old James Dalrymple, kicking, punching and smashing a video recorder on his head.

They were convicted of murder in December and remanded for reports.

The judge warned them that they would be jailed for life but said he wanted to know why they had reacted so violently.

Breakspear and Etherington, both of Walton-on-Thames in England, tried to blame each other for the attack in January, last year.

Breakspear claimed Mr Dalrymple had made an indecent proposal to her at a party.

Mr Dalrymple, a painter and decorator, had 50 injuries, including some caused by a screwdriver, to his head, neck and body when his body was found at his Surrey flat the next day.

He was born in Co Antrim and his father Gerard Dalrymple (58) was shot dead by loyalist gunmen as he arrived for work in Castlerock, Co Derry.