{"id":271278,"date":"2026-01-07T01:14:08","date_gmt":"2026-01-07T01:14:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/271278\/"},"modified":"2026-01-07T01:14:08","modified_gmt":"2026-01-07T01:14:08","slug":"inquests-into-sad-and-tragic-newtownabbey-double-murder-expected-in-june-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/271278\/","title":{"rendered":"Inquests into \u2018sad and tragic\u2019 Newtownabbey double-murder expected in June \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Inquests into the deaths of a man and two women in separate knife attacks in <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/antrim\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/antrim\/\">Co Antrim<\/a> are expected to be held in June.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Kenneth McClean-Flanagan (26) is thought to have murdered his mother Karen McClean-Flanagan (50) and girlfriend Stacey Knell (30) in Newtownabbey in March 2021 before taking his own life.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The incident led to calls in the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/northern-ireland-assembly\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/northern-ireland-assembly\/\">Northern Ireland Assembly<\/a> for unified and determined action to tackle gender-based violence in Northern Ireland.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">A number of preliminary hearings have been held at Belfast\u2019s Laganside Courthouse since March 2025.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">The first preliminary hearing heard a proposal by Coroner Anne-Louise Toal that an inquest into the death of Mr McClean-Flanagan should be held separately to those of his two victims.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ms Knell\u2019s next-of-kin, the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/police-service-of-northern-ireland\/\" target=\"_self\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.irishtimes.com\/tags\/police-service-of-northern-ireland\/\">Police Service of Northern Ireland<\/a> (PSNI) and the Northern Health and Social Care Trust are all legally represented in the proceedings.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Coroner Anne-Louise Toal received an update on preparations for the inquests during a brief preliminary hearing at Belfast Coroner\u2019s Court on Tuesday.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ronan Daly, counsel for the coroner, said work was ongoing on the disclosure of material from the PSNI, evidence and the consideration of a potential further witness.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Ms Toal referred to a \u201cvery sad and tragic case\u201d and voiced her hope to list the inquests for hearing on the week commencing June 15th.<\/p>\n<p class=\"c-paragraph paywall \">Another preliminary hearing is to take place on February 23rd. \u2013 PA <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Inquests into the deaths of a man and two women in separate knife attacks in Co Antrim are&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":271279,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[41],"tags":[17296,9,10,13,14,6,11,12,15,16,5,9620,952,7,8,65,66,67],"class_list":{"0":"post-271278","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"tag-antrim","9":"tag-breaking-news","10":"tag-breakingnews","11":"tag-featured-news","12":"tag-featurednews","13":"tag-headlines","14":"tag-latest-news","15":"tag-latestnews","16":"tag-main-news","17":"tag-mainnews","18":"tag-news","19":"tag-northern-ireland-assembly","20":"tag-police-service-of-northern-ireland-psni","21":"tag-top-stories","22":"tag-topstories","23":"tag-world","24":"tag-world-news","25":"tag-worldnews"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/115851169786990962","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271278","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=271278"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/271278\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/271279"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=271278"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=271278"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=271278"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}