TWO UVF brothers, one of whom has since become a Roman Catholic after naming up to a dozen former loyalist associates, could receive substantially lower sentences than their crimes deserve.
Lawyers yesterday told Belfast Crown Court judge Mr Justice Hart that despite “any public distaste” or any misgivings he may have, the brothers’ sentences should be cut by more than three-quarters given their “exceptional and unique case”.
Former loyalist paramilitaries Robert John Stewart (39), Ballyearl Court, and Ian David Stewart (35) Carntall Rise, Belfast, have between them pleaded guilty to over 80 charges, including involvement in the murder of UDA chief Tommy English in October 2000.
Prosecuting lawyer David Russell agreed with Mr Justice Hart that normally their crimes would attract sentences in excess of 20 years, but that they were due “considerable credit” not only for their guilty pleas, but also for agreeing to give evidence against their former associates.
Mr Russell said it was “only in the most exceptional cases”, where the brothers had signed up to give evidence under the Serious Organised Crime and Police Act of 2005, that such substantial reductions in sentence were given.
He said that while the devastation of Mr English’s family went without saying, “they are . . . conscious that without the admissions of the accused that further investigation and bringing to justice of others would have been unlikely . . . The admissions of the accused are central to that process.”
Defence lawyers Patrick Lyttle and Bara McGrory argued that “the circumstances of this case are perhaps so unique, and the assistance that has been given proves so considerable, that this is a case that must fall into the high end of the scale on any discount to be provided”.
Later Mr McGrory, who revealed that before the brothers voluntarily gave themselves up to police in August 2008, Ian Stewart was converting to Catholicism, said what the brothers were doing was in the interests of society.
“This society has travelled some considerable distance in recent years, and if it is to continue to approach normality it is very much in society’s interests that this man and [those] whom he was associated with and against whom he will be giving evidence, are removed from the terror they inflicted on their own community,” said the lawyer.
Mr Lyttle, for Robert Stewart, told the court of the added hardships the brothers faced given the path they had taken “to unburden themselves of their criminality”.
Both will have only themselves for company in prison while being guarded by a “hand-picked and specially trained” group of warders, with their meals being delivered in sealed containers. Upon their release the “inevitable consequence will be to leave these shores for good, never to return”.
Mr Justice Hart said he would pass sentence on the brothers “as soon as possible”, but fixed no date for the hearing.