{"id":238173,"date":"2025-12-17T21:41:16","date_gmt":"2025-12-17T21:41:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/238173\/"},"modified":"2025-12-17T21:41:16","modified_gmt":"2025-12-17T21:41:16","slug":"inquest-into-deaths-of-three-teenagers-outside-co-tyrone-disco-deferred","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/238173\/","title":{"rendered":"Inquest into deaths of three teenagers outside Co Tyrone disco deferred"},"content":{"rendered":"

An inquest into the deaths of three teenagers in a crush outside a disco in Co Tyrone will not start until a criminal trial has completed, a preliminary hearing has been told.<\/p>\n

Connor Currie, 16, and 17-year-olds Lauren Bullock and Morgan Barnard died in a fatal crush at the doors of the Greenvale Hotel, in Cookstown, Co Tyrone.<\/p>\n

They were among hundreds of young people queuing to enter the venue for a St Patrick\u2019s Day disco on March 17th, 2019.<\/p>\n

The hotel owner and a self-employed security worker have denied charges of manslaughter, with a trial to get under way in 2026.<\/p>\n

\"CookstownFloral tributes outside The Greenvale Hotel in Cookstown, Co Tyrone (Liam McBurney\/PA)<\/p>\n

A preliminary hearing took place at Belfast Coroner\u2019s Court on Tuesday ahead of an inquest into the deaths of the three teenagers.<\/p>\n

Their families were among those who attended the brief hearing presided over by coroner Maria Dougan.<\/p>\n

It heard that the inquest will not get under way until the criminal proceedings have concluded.<\/p>\n

Another preliminary hearing is set to take place next year.<\/p>\n

Hotel owner Michael McElhatton, 58, of Rock Road, Moneymore, Co Londonderry and a self-employed member of security staff, Seamus Mitchell, 47, of Mullan Road, Coagh have been charged with three counts of manslaughter.<\/p>\n

At a hearing at Belfast Crown Court last week, both pleaded not guilty to the charges.<\/p>\n

The trial is expected to start in October 2026, and to last for around three months.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"An inquest into the deaths of three teenagers in a crush outside a disco in Co Tyrone will…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":238174,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-238173","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-breaking-news","9":"tag-breakingnews","10":"tag-featured-news","11":"tag-featurednews","12":"tag-headlines","13":"tag-latest-news","14":"tag-latestnews","15":"tag-main-news","16":"tag-mainnews","17":"tag-news","18":"tag-top-stories","19":"tag-topstories","20":"tag-world","21":"tag-world-news","22":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115737086874287207","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238173","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=238173"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/238173\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/238174"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=238173"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=238173"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=238173"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}