Larne Leisure Centre arson attack: 'Additional number of suspects' added to case file, court hears

Violence flared on the streets of Ballymena in June before spreading to other parts of Northern Ireland including Larne in subsequent days.

Paul White, aged 25, of Fairway in Larne, is charged with arson at the town’s leisure centre on June 11 last year.

He is also charged with riotous behaviour and with causing criminal damage at the leisure centre on Tower Road on June 11.

The defendant is further charged with attempting to pervert the course of justice. That charge is in relation to June 14 last year.

The charge is that 'with intent to pervert the course of public justice attempted to do an act which had a tendency to pervert the course of public justice, namely tried to access the email and password of the Anti-Immigration Facebook account in Larne after his co-accused was arrested'.

Meanwhile, Nathan Gilbert Clifford, aged 32, whose address is listed as Drumahoe Gardens, Larne, is charged with publishing information on June 11 on Facebook 'capable of encouraging or assisting the commission of one or more of a number of offences, namely riotous behaviour, criminal damage, intimidation or affray, believing that one or more of those offences would be committed, but having no belief as to which, and believing that your act will encourage or assist the commission of one or more of them'.

In relation to June 13 he is charged with sending on a communications network 'a message or other matter that was of a menacing character'.

He is also charged with the possession of a class B drug, namely cannabis, on June 14.

When the matter was mentioned at Ballymena Magistrates' Court on Thursday, January 8, a prosecutor said that an "additional number of suspects" have been added to the case file, saying: "There are now four in total" and it is "quite a weighty file".

White and Clifford are on continuing bail and their cases were adjourned to Ballymena Magistrates’ Court on February 19.