Two men convicted of murder 20 years ago were celebrating last night after a collapse of the case against them.
Brothers-in-law Billy Gorman (40) and Paddy McKinney (42), from Belfast, are now almost certain to be cleared.
In the Court of Appeal in Belfast yesterday three judges reserved their ruling in the men's appeals against conviction in 1980 for murdering Constable Thomas McClinton in 1974.
The killing became known as "the schoolboy murder" as one of the gunmen was said to have worn a school uniform.
Gorman and McKinney were sentenced to life imprisonment and served a total of 25 years before being released on licence in the early 1990s.
They waged a legal battle to clear their names and claimed police fabricated their statements of admission.