TWO Belfast men have been jailed for offences linked to a loyalist paramilitary blackmailing scheme.
David Pollins (32) from Lower Rockview Street was jailed for nine months whilst 34-year old David Moore, from Monarch Parade will serve seven and a half months behind bars.
Due to time already served on remand, both men are expected to be released soon.
The pair were arrested after they approached a building contractor on a south Belfast site. The pair initially asked for scrap metal, before a demand was made for £1,000. During these demands for money, reference was made to the UDA.
'Witness A' reported the blackmail to police after it emerged staff at the building site were approached at the end of March 2013.
Telephone numbers were exchanged between the pair and Witness A, who contacted the PSNI straight away.
A police surveillance operation was launched. During one conversation recorded, Witness A was told that if she paid protection money, there would be 'no bother' from anyone else. Cash was handed over on several occasions, and the pair were arrested on the Boucher Road on the day a payment of £250 was handed over.
Both Moore and Pollins admitted a charge of professing to belong to the UDA on dates between June 2013 and September 2014. They also both admitted a blackmailing charge, namely making an umwarranted demand of £1000 from Witness A - a businesswoman - with menaces, whilst Pollins pleaded guilty to an additional blackmail charge.
Passing sentence at Belfast Crown Court, Judge Gordon Kerr QC said that whilst blackmail was a serious offence which warranted a prison sentence, he considered the offending as at the "lower end of the scale."