Three due back in court in Tipperary over alleged child abduction

Three people are due before a Tipperary court this Wednesday on charges of child abduction.

The three, two women aged 51 and 34, and a man aged 41, were refused bail at Nenagh Court last week where they faced two counts of the alleged abduction of two children in Northern Ireland.

They cannot be named to prevent the identification of the children.

The children, along with the three accused, were subsequently discovered in a house in Thurles.

The three accused were remanded in custody by Judge Elizabeth MacGrath to appear via video link at Tipperary Court, sitting in Nenagh, on June 2.

During a bail hearing last Thursday, the court heard that the boys, aged eight and six, had gone missing from Belfast following a court action by social services to have them taken into care.

A nationwide search for the boys was carried out by An Garda Síochána and the PSNI.

Judge MacGrath was told by Det Sgt Andrew Lyons, Templemore Garda station, that the children were located in an unoccupied house in the Thurles area in the company of an adult and a teenage girl.