Bill Hill leaves court
He’s the rebel UDA bigshot who did a runner – once the bullets started flying.
Six-feet ten-inches tall ‘Big Bill’ Hill made a big show of turning up at Belfast Crown Court with his cronies a week ago to mock UDA Brigadier John Bunting and two of his Tiger’s Bay comrades in the dock.
The Sunday World reported that under the front page headline of ‘CLOWN COURT’, because
riot cops had to be called in when Hill and his mob also made a mockery of the court proceedings.
Plus, they had the temerity to take on a reporter from this newspaper – before being told what to do with themselves.
However, we can now reveal that ‘hardman’ Hill didn’t stick around long after Saturday’s court hearing.
The next morning, ‘Big Bill’ flew far away from the gangster feud breaking out in North Belfast.
And he headed for his holiday bolthole in sun-splashed Benidorm.
What the beanpole rebel Brigadier left behind him was a festering inferno of a violent vendetta in Tiger’s Bay.
That was sparked just four days before when the car of former North Belfast ‘Bookie’s Brigadier’ Andre Shoukri and his criminal sidekick John ‘Bonzer’ Boreland was hit by a bottle.
Both convicted blackmail gangsters got out.
Shots were fired. Boreland was hit in the leg. Shoukri escaped unscathed.
A week ago, John Bunting, 47, and close mainstream UDA associates John ‘Hoover’ Howcroft, 46, and 31-year-old Darren McCalister all appeared in the dock at Belfast Crown Court charged with attempted murder and possessing a gun with intent to commit murder.
A mini-mob of Shoukri and Boreland’s supporters, led by ‘Big Bill’ Hill, turned up at the court to mock, wink and smirk at the trio from the public gallery.
‘Ninja’ cops in riot gear were ordered into the court to keep rival factions apart.
‘Big Bill’ made a big play of his presence then – but then jetted out to Benidorm only hours later, on Sunday morning.
Said one source in turmoil-hit Tiger’s Bay – where Hill lives, and where he has recently staged regular meetings with Shoukri and Boreland in his Mervue Street house: “That was some show-of-strength in the court.
“But then he took fright and took a flight the next morning – and left everyone else in the s****e.”
Meantime, John Bunting and his three co-accused remain behind bars after a bid for bail by the burly North Belfast Brigadier failed on Friday.
Belfast Magistrates Court, where the Bunting bail application was lodged, was told that Boreland and Shoukri were in a car when it was hit by a bottle.
According to that pair, they got out to confront a group of men where the incident occurred at Carr’s Glen Park in the Ballysillan area of Belfast on Wednesday week ago.
Boreland claims that Bunting was heard to give the instruction ‘get the pieces’ before he and Shoukri came under fire, and he, Boreland, was hit in the leg.
Opposing bail, a PSNI detective involved in the investigation described it as a ‘brazen’ attack in a residential area.
He claimed there was a risk of witness intimidation and said other people were still being sought in connection with the shooting.
Bail was refused, even though a range of references was produced on behalf of Bunting – one from an unnamed clergyman.
And in tune with what the detective said in court about ‘other people still being sought in connection with the shooting’, three other men were arrested later on Friday on suspicion of the attempted murder of Boreland on August 20 last.
The trio, aged 40, 38 and 37, have been released.
Detective Inspector Trevor Brier said the three are now the subject of a PSNI report being sent to the Public Prosecution Service.
Meantime, tensions in Tiger’s Bay, and through out loyalist areas of North Belfast, remain high.
Cars have been burnt out, homes torched, and both Shoukri and Boreland are said to be ‘strutting the streets’.
The rebel UDA faction – described as a ‘criminal element’ by the mainstream organisation – are not yet said to have executed their plan.
But the ordinary people of Tiger’s Bay say they are ‘sick of the lot of them’.
Said one spokesperson representing Tiger’s Bay residents last night: “We don’t want any of them ‘back in charge’. We just want this community to have a break from all of them and their feuds and in-fighting.”