Wife found guilty of double murder

A former Sunday school teacher has been found guilty of murdering her husband and her lover's wife.

Hazel Stewart, 48, from Coleraine, is to serve a life sentence for plotting with her then-lover – Colin Howell, a dentist – to murder Trevor Buchanan and Lesley Howell in May 1991 so they could be together.

Their spouses were found dead in a fume-filled car in the seaside town of Castlerock, in what police believed was a suicide pact. Howell confessed to elders in his church two years ago and he is serving a 21-year jail sentence for the murders.

Judge Anthony Hart, at Coleraine Crown Court, will set Stewart's minimum term on 11 March.