Love angst of hanged nurse
A NURSE who failed to find love on the internet killed herself after a cry for help on Facebook, an inquest heard.
Joanne Birt, 39, left her front door unlocked and posted an image of a noose. No one spotted the message and she was found hanged at home in Nelson, Lancs.
Burnley coroner Richard Taylor said she may have been expecting someone to save her, adding: “She died of a deliberate act but I cannot go that step further and say it was an intentional act to end her life.”
Verdict: Misadventure.
TWO ex-British soldiers – aged 67 and 65 – will go on trial over the murder of an IRA commander during The Troubles.
The former paratroopers are accused over the shooting of republican leader Joe McCann, 24, during a Belfast patrol on April 15, 1972.
Unnamed soldier A, 67, and Soldier C, 65, are among the first veterans to face prosecution since a controversial review of all Army killings in Northern Ireland.
A spokesman for Public Prosecution Service said: “Following careful consideration of all the available evidence it has been decided to prosecute two men for the offence of murder.”
A third paratrooper from the patrol that fired on Mr McCann has since died.
Mr McCann was one of the Official IRA’s most prominent activists and had been in hiding after being told he was at the top of the Royal Ulster Constabulary’s wanted list, it is claimed. He was shot dead in Belfast after a chase and 10 cartridge cases were reportedly found close to his body.
The RUC investigated the shooting in 1972 and a decision based on the evidence available then was taken not to prosecute.
But a Historical Enquiries Team carried out a fresh investigation in 2012.
More prosecutions are likely to follow. Files on the 1972 Bloody Sunday shootings by soldiers in Londonderry are being considered.
Retired corporal Major Dennis Hutchings, of Torpoint, near Plymouth, was accused last year of an attempted murder in Co Tyrone in 1974. And paratrooper Lee Clegg was cleared in 1999 of murdering a Belfast teenager.