Supergrass Trial: Robert Stewart avrebbe sbagliato a riconoscere David “Reggie” Miller

Supergrass challenged over co-accused

UVF supergrass Robert Stewart has admitted he has made another mistake about one of the 14 men he has implicated in the murder of UDA leader Tommy English nearly eleven years ago.

Stewart, 37, had claimed that he recognised David ‘Reggie’ Miller as the man in a balaclava who swore him into the UVF in 1994 because of his speech impediment.

But on Friday, Miller’s lawyer Mr Barry McDonald QC told Belfast Crown Court that his client didn’t have a lisp or a stutter as Stewart had claimed in his statements to police.

Stewart replied: “If you say he hasn’t got one, he hasn’t got one.”

The lawyer then asked Stewart: “Could the explanation be that you have never heard Mr Miller speak? If you had ever heard him, you would know that he has no stutter or lisp.”

“I have heard him speak,” interjected Stewart who denied Mr McDonald’s claim that he had never been in Miller’s company.

“Oh, yes I have. He swore me into the UVF.”

Stewart said he had been wearing a balaclava but the next time he heard the voice he knew it was Miller.

At one point he said: “If I am doing him [Miller] an injustice, I apologise to him.”

On Thursday, Stewart admitted he had mistaken to put one of the accused – John Bond – at the scene of a beating when he was actually in prison at the time.

On Friday morning Stewart said he was sure that Miller had been at a flat in the New Mossley estate in Newtownabbey where the murder of Mr English was planned.

The court heard on Thursday that the PSNI had seen Miller in another area six miles away around the time Stewart had said he was at the planning meeting.

But on Friday, Stewart insisted Miller was present at the flat claiming he may have been ‘in and out’ several times during the afternoon.

Just before lunch, Stewart who is testifying along with his younger brother David, said he was tired.

“It’s been a long week. I didn’t get much sleep last night and I don’t want to say something I didn’t mean to say.”

The trial has been adjourned until Monday. At hearing.