Hutchinson elected PUP leader
The PUP has elected Billy Hutchinson as its new leader at the party’s annual conference on Saturday.
The former UVF prisoner, who lost his assembly seat in 2003, was sentenced to life imprisonment for killing two Catholic men on the Falls Road in 1974.
His appointment as leader follows Brian Ervine’s decision to step down in June of this year, after the party’s failure to win a seat in East Belfast in the Assembly elections.
Mr Ervine said the main reason for resigning was his need to return to employment.
He was elected as leader in October 2010 in the wake of Dawn Purvis’s resignation after the UVF murder of Bobby Moffett.
