UVF boss ‘smirked as he ordered murder’

LOYALIST leader Mark Haddock smirked as he dispatched a hit team to gun down a paramilitary rival, a member of the murder plot has told a court.

Robert Stewart, who has turned state evidence against the alleged Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) commander and 13 other men facing paramilitary-linked charges, told Belfast Crown Court Haddock directed the plan to kill Ulster Defence Association (UDA) boss Tommy English 11 years ago. “Haddock, he was running the whole thing,” Stewart said.

Mr English, aged 40, was gunned down in his house in front of his wife and three children just after 6pm on Halloween night in 2000 during a bloody feud between the UDA and UVF.

Mr Stewart, aged 37, from north Belfast, claimed Haddock and other senior UVF members in the north of the city planned the killing in retaliation for the shooting of a colleague.

At the outset of the trial, he recounted how he, Haddock and a number of the co-accused gathered in a flat 2km from where English lived on the morning of the murder to discuss the plot.

Mr Stewart, facing the 14 defendants as he gave evidence to a packed Court 12, said Haddock delivered a chilling parting message to the murder gang as he left two hours before the shooting. “Mark Haddock said, ‘try to miss the kids’.”

When asked by Gordon Kerr, prosecuting, what way Haddock had said it, Stewart replied: “He had a smirk on his face.”

The 14 face a litany of paramilitary charges, with most facing counts linked to the murder of Mr English, in one of the largest trials in the North in decades. They all deny the charges.

Mr Stewart and his brother David Ian Stewart have both turned state’s evidence.

The two window cleaners pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting the murder and membership of the UVF and received a reduced sentence in return for their co-operation with the authorities in the case.

Haddock, aged 42, sat apart from his 13 other co-accused over fears for his safety.

Police staged a major security operation both outside and inside the court amid fears of disturbances.

There is simmering anger within loyalism that Haddock and the other defendants will be tried on evidence based largely on the testimony of the Stewarts. Supporters of the 14 accused have likened the case to the so-called supergrass trials in the 1980s, which saw both loyalist and republican paramilitaries jailed on the evidence of former colleagues.

All 14 accused spoke to confirm their names as the trial began in front of Mr Justice John Gillen with the public gallery packed full.

Special measures have been introduced ahead of the trial, with witnesses and members of English’s family being kept in a secure room in a different building, linked to Laganside’s courthouse by video.

The trial could last up to three months.