Chief Con praises police response to Cookstown tragedy

Detectives investigating the deaths of three teenagers in a crush outside a disco 'have done a good job' according to the Chief Constable.

17-year-old Lauren Bullock, Morgan Barnard who was also 17, and 16-year-old Connor Currie died near the Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown, on Saint Patrick's Night last month.

PSNI Chief Constable George Hamilton said the hotel owner's arrest and subsequent de-arrest in a drugs probe was a regrettable "distraction'' from the focus of the investigation.

He added: "The organisation I am responsible for, as far as I am concerned, is competent in this matter.

"The investigation team and local police have done a good job, not to be self-congratulatory in such tragic circumstances.

"It is a human endeavour and sometimes judgments are not quite right.''

Mr Hamilton told his Policing Board scrutiny committee in Belfast he had referred his force's handling of initial reports of the tragedy to the independent Police Ombudsman for review.

Police have identified hundreds of witnesses to the teenagers' deaths.

The area outside the hotel was packed with young people dropped off by buses just before the popular nightspot opened.

Investigators said teenagers were trodden underfoot during the crush near the entrance to the disco.

The head of the Catholic Church in Ireland said the area had become a "valley of tears'' following the tragedies.

Three back-to-back funerals were held in the Dungannon area and were attended by large numbers of mourners.