A SOLICITOR for a Co Antrim teenager facing charges linked to the high-profile hacking of telecom giant TalkTalk said his client would be entering a guilty plea on one of the charges.

The boy, who was 15 at the time of the cyber incident in October 2015, faces two charges.

The teenager who cannot be named because of his age - he is now 17 - was not present at Ballymena Youth Court yesterday however a solicitor for the accused said his client was pleading guilty to the first charge.

That charge stated that between October 15 and October 22 2015, the boy 'caused a computer to perform a function with intent to secure unauthorised access to any program or data held in a computer hosting the website talktalk.co.uk or to enable any such access to be secured at a time when you knew that it was unauthorised contrary to ... the Computer Misuse Act 1990'.

The lawyer entered a not guilty plea to the second charge his client faces on the same dates. Garret McCann said he believed the case could last a minimum of a week.

That charge alleges the defendant 'did unauthorised acts in relation to a computer hosting the website talktalk.co.uk at a time when you knew that it was unauthorised, with intent to impair the operation of a computer or to prevent or hinder access to a program or data held on a computer, or being reckless as to whether the said act would have such effect contrary to ... the Computer Misuse Act 1990'.

In October 2015, a police spokesman said a 15 year-old youth had been arrested in Co Antrim as part of the investigation into the alleged theft of data from the firm TalkTalk.

A number of other people have appeared in courts in other parts of the UK in connection with the overall TalkTalk cyber attack.

TalkTalk previously described how it fell victim to a "significant and sustained" attack on its website in October 2015.

The personal data of more than 150,000 people was accessed in a breach - and the company was later fined £400,000 for security failings.

The firm said the fallout from the overall cyber attack cost it £42m - including security upgrades - but later said customer numbers had "bounced back" following an initial dip.