Northern Ireland

UVF supergrass Gary Haggarty to be arraigned on 202 charges in summer

UVF supergrass Gary Haggarty
UVF supergrass Gary Haggarty UVF supergrass Gary Haggarty

UVF supergrass Gary Haggarty is to be formally arraigned on more than 200 charges in the summer, a court has heard.

Haggarty (46), whose address was given as c/o PSNI Knocknagoney in east Belfast, was due to be arraigned later this month.

The former tyre fitter is facing an unprecedented 202 charges - including five murders, five attempted murders and 66 firearms offences - linked to UVF activity across north Belfast and south-east Antrim in the 1990s and 2000s.

The charges span a period of 16 years and also include offences of directing the activities of the UVF in south-east Antrim, as well as being a member of the proscribed organisation.

During a review of his case yesterday at Belfast Crown Court, in the absence of Haggarty, a senior defence lawyer told Mr Justice Treacy that the planned arraignment on April 28 would not now proceed.

Martin O'Rourke QC said: "We are now asking for a substantial adjournment to consider the material in the case and the reasons for that are two-fold: firstly, there had been the issue of getting legal aid in the case and secondly, the substantial amount of papers in the case.

"We have had about eight weeks of slippage in the case in reviewing the material. We are asking for a deferral of the arraignment until towards the end of term in order to facilitate a consideration the papers.

"There will be a substantial amount of charges that there will be guilty pleas to but it is not practical to have a partial arraignment in the case.''

Describing it as a "complex case'', Mr O'Rourke added that because of the huge volume of papers involved, he wanted to review all the papers in their entirety "so we can advise our client''.

Mr Justice Treacy set the date for the new arraignment hearing for June 23 for all 202 charges.

The judge added that if matters had progressed before that, the defence team should come back to the court and an early date could be fixed.

A previous hearing was told that the defence team were dealing with 1,100 inteviews Haggarty had with detectives spanning a four-year period.

He was first arrested in August 2009 and initially charged with the murder of John Harbinson, who was beaten to death with an iron bar in the Mount Vernon estate in north Belfast in May 1997.