Supergrass Trial: David Stewart ha provato “a dimenticare omicidio di Tommy English”

Supergrass ‘tried to forget’ murder

UVF supergrass David Ian Stewart has told Belfast Crown Court he had “spent years trying to forget the Tommy English murder”.

The 41-year-old was questioned by defence QC Barry MacDonald on behalf of 38-year-old David ‘Reggie’ Miller.

Stewart and his brother Robert are giving evidence against Mark Haddock and 13 others, nine of whom are charged with the fatal shooting of Tommy English.

The UDA chief English was gunned down at his Ballyduff home in October 2000 during a bloody loyalist feud.

Stewart also claimed that he had “spent years trying to forget the Tommy English murder” and that while being questioned by police he had to remember it all over again.

Mr MacDonald put it to Stewart that alleged deputy UVF commander Miller, of Upritchard Court in Bangor, was innocent of any involvement in English’s murder.

Stewart told the court when he was first questioned by police he was “nervous” and that “under the circumstances it would be easy to make a mistake”.

However, Stewart did accept on one occasion that he couldn’t understand how he was mistaken in his evidence and even told Mr Justice Gillen he “didn’t know, honestly”.

When Stewart was asked on other occasions about the evidence of his brother Robert, and alleged difference between their accounts of what occurred, Stewart maintained his was right.

He told the court: “Well I can’t answer for my brother”. Later he repeated: “Again I can’t say that, I can’t speak for my brother’s statement… I can’t speak for him you know”.

Stewart claimed police provided an alibi for one of the 14 accused, whom he had also misidentified from a photograph, but told the court he didn’t “care about any independent witness… I am telling the truth”.

Stewart also refuted any suggestion that he was an “unreliable historian”, maintaining that any discrepancies could be put down to “a mistake, a slip of the tongue”.

Earlier in the day, Stewart told leading prosecuting QC Gordon Kerr that he and his brother Robert knew nothing about any deals under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act when they first went to police in August 2008.

He also claimed that even when he learned of the scheme he wasn’t sure “what the effect would be” for him or his brother.

Stewart said when he and his brother gave themselves up, they “were just going in to confess” to police and anticipated they would be questioned about the murder of English eleven years ago this month.

The trial has now been adjourned, and will resume after the mid-term break in November when Stewart faces cross-examination from up to a dozen other defence lawyers for the men, who between them deny a total of 37 charges.