Security is to be tightened at a Newtownabbey cemetery following the desecration of nearly 30 graves last weekend.

Councillors in Newtownabbey met on Monday night to consider how the attacks at Carnmoney cemetery could be stopped.

The cemetery is on the outskirts of north Belfast.

SDLP councillor Noreen McLelland said a range of security measures would be used.

Mrs McLelland had earlier called for funding to help protect the cemetery.

She said there would be security patrols at the graveyard, particularly at the weekends.

Catholic families

The latest attack is the second on the graveyard in the last fortnight.

There was also an attack in May on the grave of a man murdered by loyalists earlier in the year.

In the latest attack, memorial crosses on some graves were smashed and headstones were overturned.

It is thought all of the graves targeted belonged to Catholic families.

Father Dan White, who is parish priest for the area, said it was the worst attack of its kind he had seen.

The cemetery is beside Rathcoole estate, a loyalist housing area where Catholic postman Daniel McColgan, 20, was murdered by the Ulster Defence Association as he arrived for work in January 2002.

In May, his grave in Carnmoney was damaged in a similar attack.