Catholic family escape hand grenade attack

A Northern Ireland couple and their five month old baby had a miraculous escape yesterday when a hand grenade exploded underneath their van.

The Catholic couple, with their child, were driving around Larne, Co Antrim, when the device went off directly beneath the passenger seat, where the mother was holding her baby.

Their lives may have been saved by the fact that the device was so elderly, the grenade reportedly dating back to the second world war.

The widespread assumption is that this was a loyalist attack.