A convicted prisoner who was accidentally released from custody has been caught by police.
The Northern Ireland Prison Service confirmed Sean Gerard Cahill, wrongly freed last November, had been returned to custody.
Mr Cahill was released after appearing at Laganside Courts in Belfast on November 24 where he was convicted and sentenced to one month’s imprisonment on a charge of aggravated vehicle taking. He was released due to the time he had spent on remand awaiting trial.
It emerged, however, that rather than being released, he should have been returned to custody pending a further hearing scheduled for November 30 in relation to charges of robbery, possession of an offensive weapon and taking a vehicle without the owner’s consent.
The “erroneous release” came to light when Mr Cahill did not appear for the subsequent hearing. (PA)
Church-door kidnap
A Brazilian woman was kidnapped moments before walking down the aisle but, despite being robbed of her jewellery and wedding car, returned to the church two hours later to marry her beau.
Wife-to-be Mariele Correa rolled up at a church in Curitiba, in southern Brazil, when assailants drove off in the car – with the bride, her 10-year-old maid of honour and friends still inside.
The kidnappers drove around the city for 20 minutes before releasing the hostages about 10 kilometres from the church. They robbed Ms Correa and her companions of their money and jewellery, and took the car.
Ms Correa borrowed a phone to call her fiance, policeman Glaucio Luiz Correa, to explain what happened, then hopped in a taxi and returned to the church to tie the knot. (AFP)
Out with the old
Greece has thrown out nearly a dozen items such as floppy discs, photo film and matches from a list of “nearly extinct” goods used until now to calculate inflation.
“Ten old items that no longer represent average household purchases or are nearly (or fully) extinct from the market have been erased,” the Esye agency said in a statement this week.
The eliminated items include common lightbulbs, ladies pull-overs and retsina, the traditional resinated wine.
They were replaced by 26 goods more reflective of modern Greek society such as espresso coffee, MP4 and Blu-ray players, GPS devices, baby wipes, low-fat cheese, diet biscuits, mouthwash, sunblock, hair dye, dental bleaching, mastography and postgraduate education fees. (AFP)
Gadgetology
Young women find dogs sexier than smartphones. The bad news for geeks was released in a Retrevo.com study aimed at finding out whether gadgets make people more attractive as love interests.
While about half of men surveyed in the Gadgetology study thought seeing someone using a hip smartphone was attractive, only 36 per cent of women shared that sentiment.
“More women under 35 say they are more attracted to someone walking a dog than someone using a cool phone,” Retrevo said in an “iPads Don’t Make You Look as Cool as You Think” titled blog post.
When all genders and income brackets were combined, gadgets were more of a turn-off than a turn-on, according to the research inspired by St Valentine’s Day.
Retrevo.com is a consumer electronics shopping website. (AFP)