Loyalist chief jailed for 28 years

12 April 2012

A loyalist paramilitary boss has been jailed for 28 years for running a bloody terrorist campaign which included the murder of a Catholic grandmother and an attempt to kill four police officers.

Jim Fulton's sectarian reign of bombings and shootings was brought to an end after he confessed to undercover detectives.

The 38-year-old, who headed the outlawed Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF) in Portadown, County Armagh, grinned as Mr Justice Hart passed sentence on 48 offences he was convicted of.

These included ordering terrorist thugs to pipe bomb the home of Elizabeth O'Neill. Mrs O'Neill, 59, was killed in an explosion at her house in Portadown after she picked up a device thrown in while she was watching television in June 1999.

The murder was carried out amid intense sectarian tensions over the disputed Drumcree Orange Order parade.

A year earlier four RUC officers were injured when Fulton threw a blast bomb at them at the scene of the contested march. They were so badly injured that two of them have still not returned to duty.

The LVF chief, a brother of dead paramilitary godfather Mark "Swinger" Fulton, was also convicted of a catalogue of other crimes including possession of the gun used to murder a Catholic taxi driver, hijackings and a drugs operation involving the importation of up to 50kg of cannabis a week.

But with relatives of Mrs O'Neill listening at Belfast Crown Court, Mr Justice Hart told how Fulton was the one who had ordered and planned the attack on her home.

The judge said: "His culpability for what happened is greater than anyone else involved in this episode and I propose to sentence him accordingly.

"This was a very grave crime with many aggravating features and I think the minimum period necessary to satisfy the requirements of retribution and deterrence before he can be considered for release is 25 years imprisonment." The judge also sentenced him to 28 years in jail for the attack on the police officers.

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