A 22-YEAR-OLD MAN has been sentenced to 240 hours of community service for singing a song mocking the death of Michaela McAreavey, who was murdered in 2011.

Police in Northern Ireland have said he received the sentence “for the offence of behaviour likely to stir up hatred”, after a video was posted online in June 2023.

Dillon Kelly was sentenced to 240 hours community service at Laganside Magistrates Court, after being found guilty on Wednesday 13 March.

Last month, 26-year-old Steven Kane was sentenced to four months in prison which was suspended for 18 months, and 23-year-old Cian Jones was sentenced to 240 hours of community service.

The sentencing comes after a police investigation into footage of singing at an event hosted in a venue in Dundonald, County Down, in May 2022, which was streamed live on social media.

In the clip, filmed in an Orange Hall, several men were seen singing a song about the death of Michaela McAreavey.

The 27-year-old teacher was strangled in her room at the Legends Hotel in Mauritius on 10 January 2011.

McAreavey, who had married her husband John ten days earlier, was attacked after she returned to her room alone and disturbed a burglary.

No-one has been convicted of murdering the daughter of Gaelic football manager Mickey Harte.

The video was widely condemned across the political sphere in Northern Ireland and beyond. 

With reporting from Eimer McAuley