Belfast Live understands that a second football team fell victim to the alleged fraud earlier this week

Police are investigating allegations of fraud linked to a Northern Irish coach firm.

The investigation was launched earlier this month after a coach failed to pick up children from Lisburn Rovers FC who were due to travel to Scotland for a football tournament.

Belfast Live understands that another children’s football team fell victim to the alleged fraud earlier this week.

Speaking to Belfast Live, Nichola Blamer from Lisburn Rovers explained that this was set to be their first trip away with the children.

“This was the first trip that we had organised away with the kids, so the planning was taking place last August, and we decided to book the ESF Festival in Scotland.

“W hen we were discussing arrangements with the parents and how we were going to get across, one of our other parents had previously used this company with other football trips, so the plan was that we were going to just hire the coach off him. We didn’t even require him to come over, and the other parent has a bus licence, so the plan was that we were going to get his bus and she was going to drive the bus for us, then onto the ferry, and then we would have transport over there to take us from the caravan park to the football tournaments.

“I made contact with him, and he said it was no problem, that he would do all the booking with the ferry. He told us we were booked on the P&O ferry at 12 o’clock sailing on the 1st of May and returning at 4 p.m. on the 4th of May. He required an £800 deposit, which was paid to him in October, because apparently that’s when the ferry listings come out for the following year, so you have to get on early to get booked on.

“I insisted on being given an invoice, and the total was £95 per passenger, and we had 42 passengers going over. So the total invoice was £3990. The invoice clearly showed that an £800 deposit had been paid, with a balance of £3190 due in March.”

Nichola said that the owner of the coach company had been in touch with her regularly while payments were being made and had offered to take the parent who would be driving the coach on a test drive, but cancelled on the day he was due to meet her.

After the test drive was cancelled, Nichola said that she struggled to get in contact with the owner of the company until her husband contacted him, and he said that everything was going to plan and sent them an itinerary for the trip.

“The night before the trip, I was feeling a wee bit uneasy about it. My husband then texted him again to make sure everything was going to plan, and he said, ‘all good so far’.

“The next morning, I was up getting ready, finalising the packing, and I got a message at 7 am to say that he had gone to collect his bus and the bus was gone, and he didn’t have a bus for the trip.

“I quickly messaged him asking for the booking reference so that we could, as a team, try to organise another coach from somewhere else, and the message didn’t go through. His phone was then switched off and remained off for the whole of the weekend, so nobody could make contact with him.”

Nichola told us that the parents of the children were luckily able to book their cars onto the Stena Line service and made it to Scotland.

A PSNI spokesperson said: “Police in Lurgan are investigating a report of suspected fraud concerning a coach company reported on Friday, 1st May.

“Enquiries are ongoing at this time.”

For all the latest news, visit the Belfast Live homepage here and sign up to our daily newsletter here.

Emergency services were called to Romano Park on Friday (May 15) after a child fell from equipment at the Lamb Lane play spot.

An air ambulance was called to the scene alongside a team from the North East Ambulance Service (NEAS), who treated the child’s suspected broken arm.

Romano Park in Ingleby Barwick (Image: THE NORTHERN ECHO)

They were then taken to hospital by road crew.

A NEAS spokesperson said: “We were called just after 5.30pm yesterday (15 May) to a child who had fallen from equipment at the Romano Park Play area in Ingleby Barwick.

We dispatched the air ambulance and a paramedic crew who treated the child with a suspected broken arm before transporting to hospital by road.”

Derek McInnes’ men did all they could on Wednesday to try and wrap things up with a game to spare as they brushed aside Falkirk, though Celtic kept the battle alive by eking out a highly-controversial 3-2 victory at Motherwell. Kelechi Iheanacho converted a contentious 99th-minute penalty at Fir Park, the award of which following a VAR review has been strongly criticised including by McInnes, who called it “disgusting”.

Carrick has overseen a vast improvement at Old Trafford since replacing Ruben Amorim, who was sacked in January, successfully leading the club to Champions League qualification.

His impressive body of work since his interim appointment has put the 44-year-old in pole position to become the club’s next permanent boss.

United’s executive leadership team, that includes chief executive officer Omar Berrada and director of football Jason Wilcox, has recommended to club owners Ineos that Carrick be handed the reins on a full-time basis – which has been passed by the hierarchy.

Old Green Lane in Wilberfoss will be closed to through traffic from 1 June 2026, and is for the installation of ducting and chambers for a new fibre network.

East Riding of Yorkshire Council has confirmed that the works will affect part of the lane, ensuring safety while the installation takes place.

An alternative route will be available for affected traffic, taking vehicles via Bolton Lane, Newbridge Lane, Ling Lane, Storking Lane, Main Street, and A1079 Hull Road.

The road will be closed to all through traffic, however, residents will still have access, as will emergency vehicles and pedestrians.

It is anticipated that the works will be completed within five days.

However, the order will remain in force for up to 18 months, or until the completion of the proposed works, whichever comes first.

Further information can be obtained from Streetscene Services, Highways Maintenance, on (01482) 393939, reference CB.

For more notices affecting YOUR area, visit our Public Notice Portal at publicnoticeportal.uk/york-press

“Even Trump as bold as he is, he’s in China, he’s talking about Taiwan, so who I am in Nigeria to say I will do it alone? I must embrace my neighbours. I must pursue pragmatic cooperation and partnerships, which is necessary to enhance the security of lives and property of our people.”

People had queued outside of the Swatch shop ahead of a new launch

A shop in the Trafford Centre was forced to close today reports of huge queues and crowds rushing inside.

People had reportedly queued outside the Swatch store in the shopping centre ahead of the release of the brand’s new Royal Pop collection. When the store opened its doors this morning (Saturday, May 16), crowds of prospective buyers were then reported to have rushed inside.

The shop was then forced to close. A spokesperson for the Trafford Centre said the store will remain shut throughout the day with bosses remaining in ‘close contact’ with the brand.

Click here to get the biggest stories straight to your inbox in our Daily Newsletter

In a statement, the Trafford Centre spokesperson said: “We can confirm that the Swatch AP event at Trafford Centre has been cancelled and that the Swatch store is closed today. We remain in close contact with the brand and will share any updates in due course.”

Similar scenes were reported at the Liverpool One shopping centre this morning with the Swatch store on Paradise Street forced to keep its doors shut, the Liverpool Echo reports. Police were called in to surround the front of the queue and help manage the crowds of hundreds of people.

Crowds gathered for the release of the Royal Pop collection, a collaboration between Swatch and Audemars Piguet. The collection is only available in-store, with a limit of one watch per person per day. The £335 watch is already being pre-sold on websites such as eBay for quadruple the price.

If you want to make the perfect bacon sandwich, you need to know how to cook bacon properly – and it’s all down to not frying it in oil and using a cheaper and more natural ingredient instead.

It also tends to cook bacon fat rapidly, which can leave the white parts burnt while the pink meat remains undercooked, limp and rather chewy if you don’t fry it correctly. Bacon is fairly straightforward to prepare, but a major error many people make is drowning it in oil, which causes grease to splatter everywhere and fills the kitchen with smoke.

It also tends to cook bacon fat rapidly, which can leave the white parts burnt while the pink meat remains undercooked and quite chewy. However, Grumpy, the cook behind Grumpy Recipes who uses a pseudonym online, has revealed there’s a superior method to cook bacon for the crispiest rashers, and all you need is water.

He said: “I’ve been making crispy bacon for as long as I can remember. It’s so flavourful and adds an excellent crunch to anything you put it on…The method I’m showing today involves cooking the bacon with a few tablespoons of water. It might sound counterintuitive at first, but I promise it makes the crispiest bacon ever.”

Why cook bacon in water?

Few people understand that bacon fat renders at high heat and can essentially cook itself, and when you add oil, it tends to cook the meat far more quickly.

This frequently causes the white fatty sections of the bacon to become blackened and makes the frying pan smoky, leading people to believe the bacon is fully cooked.

Yet it often leaves the pink meaty portion of the bacon underdone, giving it an unpleasant leathery texture and making the rashers feel extremely greasy. Adding water keeps the pan at a consistent temperature, giving the fat enough time to melt properly and cook the bacon without the meat burning from excessive heat.

Bacon requires no oil whatsoever, as it naturally cooks in its own fat. Water simply ensures it cooks evenly throughout, resulting in a superior crispy texture across the entire rasher.

It also prevents the bacon from turning greasy and allows its natural, meaty flavour to shine through rather than being overpowered by oil, leaving you with far tastier strips.

How to make better bacon sandwiches

You will need:

• A frying pan with a lid
• Four to six strips of bacon
• Two tablespoons of water
• A buttered roll
• Any sauce of your choice

Method:

Start by cutting your bacon rashers in half and placing them into a cold pan. Don’t worry if they overlap slightly, as they will shrink during cooking.

Halving the rashers ensures they fit neatly in the pan and also means the fat renders more quickly, so you won’t be left waiting around for this technique to do its magic.

Pour two tablespoons of water into the pan and set the heat to low. Cover with a lid and cook for approximately seven to 10 minutes, or until all the water has completely evaporated.

Keeping the lid on retains the heat, helping the water to evaporate swiftly, while the trapped steam ensures the bacon cooks more uniformly.

Once the water has fully evaporated, the bacon will crisp up rapidly as it cooks in its own fat. Flip the rashers to ensure both sides are evenly cooked.

When the bacon is perfectly crispy, place it on a sheet of kitchen roll to soak up any excess fat, then pop it onto a buttered roll. Your bacon ought to be smoky, rich and perfectly crispy around the edges, allowing you to savour a delicious bacon butty without any unwanted grease.

PEA RIDGE, Ark. (AP) — Walmart and Amazon are racing to speed up online order deliveries in rural areas of the U.S., a rich source of untapped sales that major retailers long wrote off as too sparsely inhabited, too remote or too impoverished to serve profitably.

Walmart has a running start in the contest to build a loyal customer base in rural America. Roughly 90% of U.S. residents live within 10 miles of a Walmart store, and 45% of the company’s full-service Supercenters are in places with populations under 20,000, according to a report by investment bank Morgan Stanley.

Competition for the underserved market, which the bank’s analysts estimated could be worth up to $1 trillion in annual sales, has intensified as remote workers swell the populations of small towns and communities on the far fringes of metropolitan areas.

The same technology that makes it possible for more people to do office work from wherever they want is making it easier for the nation’s two biggest retail companies to get merchandise to them more efficiently.

Amazon last year invested $4 billion to bring same-day or next-day deliveries to 4,000 smaller cities, towns and rural communities. They included places like the coastal town of Lewes, Delaware, Milton, Florida, a city hat is considered the state’s canoe capital, Padre Island, Texas, which is about 37 miles from Corpus Christi, and Abbeville, Louisiana, known for its Cajun food scene.

In a letter to shareholders last month, CEO Andy Jassy said the average monthly number of Amazon customers receiving same-day deliveries doubled in 2025 compared to the year before. Amazon is using artificial intelligence-based tools to better forecast demand, while opening small micro hubs in rural areas.

“While other companies have been backing away from these customers, we’ve been running to them,” Jassy wrote.

The turf battle between the Goliath of e-commerce and Walmart is taking place as FedEx, UPS and the U.S. Postal Service are scaling back or slowing deliveries to some rural areas to cut costs or to concentrate on more profitable businesses.

“These folks want the same types of opportunities, services, experiences, as folks that maybe are more familiar with things like ultra-fast delivery that have been available in places like Manhattan,” David Guggina, now the CEO of Walmart U.S, told The Associated Press last fall.

Here’s a look at why and the many ways Walmart and Amazon are cultivating customers in rural America:

Changing demographics

The final step of a package’s journey from a distribution hub to a shopper’s home has always presented challenges in rural areas. Delivery drivers have to travel longer distances between stops and sometimes navigate narrow or unpaved roads in thinly populated areas, adding time that increases per-package labor and fuel costs, experts say.

Rural areas also used to be thought of as less financially well-off and therefore less desirable for retailers. But over the past decade, rural counties have shown steady growth in productivity and income, according to consulting firm McKinsey.

The median household income in rural counties rose 43% between 2010 and 2022, reaching an all-time high of nearly $60,000 a year, McKinsey said. Since the pandemic, more exurban communities located as far as 60 miles from a major city’s downtown have been among the fastest-growing places in the U.S., the U.S. Census Bureau reported.

The $1 trillion rural shoppers spend annually on electronics, clothing, home furnishings and other merchandise accounts for 20% of all retail purchases in the U.S. except for cars and gasoline, according to Morgan Stanley.

The shifting retail landscape

Amazon and Walmart are not the only companies that see potential demand from former city dwellers who grew accustomed to having groceries, clothes and other products brought to their doors quickly.

In an apparent move to stave them off in the countrysides and small towns where it staked a claim, Dollar General in January extended its same-day delivery service to more than 17,000 of the discount chain’s 20,000 stores. More than 80% of Dollar General’s same-day orders arrived in an hour or less, CEO Todd Vasos told investment analysts in March.

Rural lifestyle retailer Tractor Supply is increasing its direct delivery services to shoppers, particularly for bulky items like fence panels and riding lawnmowers. It announced plans in January to add more than 150 delivery hubs this year for a total of 375, covering more than half of its stores and reaching over 15 million customers.

Different approaches

Both Amazon and Walmart are expanding their use of delivery drones to speed up shipments from stores or order fulfillment centers. They also using methods that reflect their own roots and taking pages from each other’s playbooks.

Befitting its origins in traditional retail, Walmart is equipping its physical stores with robotic technology technology that picks and packs online orders from a storage area stocked with the most popular delivery items for each location.

The automated retrieval system helped a Walmart Supercenter in Bentonville, Arkansas, home to Walmart’s headquarters, deliver groceries within a 30-mile radius, up from 10 miles just a few years ago, Doug Sanders, Walmart’s senior director of e-commerce store fulfillment, said late last year.

The company further credits the adoption of a hexagonal mapping system with making same-day deliveries available to 12 million more households. The system replaced traditional service boundaries like ZIP codes, which can leave out small areas at the edges, executives said.

The switch also gives Walmart an expanded view of which nearby stores might have the items needed to fulfill customers’ orders. Instead of shoppers having to place separate orders from multiple locations to get everything they want, drivers now can retrieve packages from more than one store in their service area.

Amazon, which started as an online bookseller and this year closed its Amazon Fresh supermarkets and Amazon Go convenience stores, is putting local infrastructure in place to shorten the distance between its warehouses and rural areas.

The company is setting up small delivery stations to serve a group of nearby communities based on travel drive time, customer demand, and delivery efficiency, the company said. Packages that were assembled at Amazon’s massive fulfillment centers are sent to the hubs for sorting before local gig workers and contractors pick the up for delivery.

The goal is to halve the time it takes from when a customer places an order to when it arrives, from as many as five days to less than two days, according to Holly Sullivan, Amazon’s vice president of worldwide economic development.

For example, a newly opened station in Roanoke, Virginia, delivers tens of thousands of packages every day that previously weren’t getting to the customer nearly as quickly, station manager Patrick Hamilton said. Delivery routes from the facility can reach customers roughly 90 minutes away by road, spanning both the city and surrounding rural communities.

Dalton Klinger is the operations manager of the Chamber of Commerce for St. George, Utah, a city with a population of 100,000 located in the northeastern part of the Mojave Desert. The city’s mountainous surroundings are difficult for deliveries, but an Amazon station has helped speed them up.

Klinger, who has lived in St. George since 2021, said his Amazon orders of essentials like canned tuna and jars of tomato sauce that used to take four days now get to him in two.

“People are wanting faster deliveries,” he said. “It’s all about instant gratification.”

The facility at New Road, Crook, has been approved by a planning inspector despite the authority’s safety concerns. 

Durham County Council’s planning committee voted down the plans after hearing from residents who were fearful of increased crime in the area after a spate of incidents. 

But now, an inspector has ruled that the location of the children’s home is “suitable” and would not directly lead to disorder. 

Oliver Knowles, of Karoo Group Limited, applied to convert the property, known as Applegarth, to accommodate up to two children, with carers working shifts to provide 24-hour care. 

Durham Constabulary and the council’s children and young people’s services raised no objections to the proposal, stating that there is a need for smaller children’s homes in the area. 

But Mr Knowles faced opposition from 31 letters of objection and Crook’s Reform county councillor, Robbie Roddis. 

Other concerns noted the high number of crime incidents reported in Crook, including within Glenholme Park and the grounds of Lidl, which are a short walk from the property. 

Cllr Roddis said: “Crook is a town that has sadly gained a reputation over several years for anti-social activity. Due to these activities, it has been the subject of several countrywide reports concerning the criminality of a growing minority.  

“We all have a responsibility to children. Applegarth is not the solution to this responsibility and certainly will cause more issues than it is expected to solve.”

Joy Allen, Durham and Darlington’s Police and Crime Commissioner, also warned that children from outside the area could be housed inside the facility and that responding to incidents could take up a large amount of police resources.

But the inspector said it could not refuse the proposal based on the concerns. 

The decision read: “I acknowledge perceived fears of some residents about the potential for antisocial behaviour, arising from the use of the property as a children’s home. 

“It is possible that some of the children living in the property may need additional support, but there is no reason to doubt that they would be properly cared for and assisted.

“I do not find that it would be reasonable to refuse planning permission, based upon the perceived fears of some, about possible anti-social behaviour or criminal activity.”

“There is also no substantive evidence to suggest that children living in the home would affect police resources any more than children living in a family home.”

Do you agree with the decision? Have your say in the comments.