Farmers urged to learn from tragedy

The deaths of three members of a family must serve as a warning to the farming community, Northern Ireland's senior coroner has urged.

Ulster rugby player Nevin Spence (22), his brother Graham (30) and their father Noel (58) were knocked out by poisonous fumes before drowning in less than four feet of slurry at their farm near Hillsborough, Co Down.

Coroner John Leckey yesterday described the incident as the worst farming tragedy in the region in recent times.