Six deny 'Traveller kidnapping'

Six men have appeared in court charged with kidnapping a 16-year-old boy from the Travelling community and demanding a £100,000 ransom from his family.

It is alleged that Charlie Doherty was abducted from his parents' caravan in Mallusk in May 2002.

Belfast Crown Court heard he was held at a disused army bunker in Downpatrick until the ransom was paid.

All of the defendants have denied charges of kidnap, false imprisonment and blackmail. The trial continues.

A Crown lawyer told the court that one of the accused, 42-year-old Paul Braniff from Ballymurphy Road in Belfast, told the Doherty family he thought their son had been taken by loyalist paramilitaries and that he knew someone who could help.

Mr Braniff suggested that his co-accused, Stephen Dempsey of Cloverhill Vale, Bangor, could act as a go-between to get the boy back.

However, a surveillance operation undertaken by police showed that Mr Dempsey, 43, was an "integral part of the plot" to kidnap the teenager, the lawyer said.

The lawyer claimed Mr Dempsey collected the ransom money before handing it over to the third defendant, Gerald Bradley, 32, of Glenalina Park, Belfast.

He said the boy was then taken back home to his family.

The other defendants on trial are Ian Carlin, 34, of Kilard Drive, Ardglass, Michael Kearney, 30, of New Barnsley Parade, Belfast, and Gerald Maguire, 46, of Donard View, Ballyhornan, Downpatrick.

It is alleged that Mr Carlin had access to the bunker where the teenager was held and that Mr Maguire owned the house from where the phone call demanding the ransom money was made.

The prosecution also told the jury that the keys to a padlock on the army bunker where the teenager had been held were found in Mr Maguire's pocket when he was arrested by police.