The case against former financier Mr Finbarr Ross, due to begin in Belfast yesterday, was adjourned due to a member of the jury being excused. Proceedings against Mr Ross (54), from Skibbereen, Co Cork, are expected to resume later this morning when a substitute jury member has been sworn in.

Mr Ross faces a total of 41 fraud-related charges arising from the collapse of his Gibraltar-based investment company, International Investments Ltd, in 1984. Although his company was run from offices in Dublin, it is understood that about 400 of its 1,200 depositors were from Northern Ireland, most of them small-time investors who lost an estimated total of £619,000.