UVF supergrass murderer admits 200 terror raps
A FORMER loyalist paramilitary commander turned supergrass has pleaded guilty to 200 terror offences, including five murders.
Relatives of Gary Haggarty’s victims watched as he said “guilty” to the litany of charges at Belfast crown court.
He was the one-time chief of the Ulster Volunteer Force’s North Belfast Mount Vernon unit. The police informer, who’s in protective custody, will give evidence against fellow terrorists.
He pleaded guilty to five attempted murders, with police among his intended victims, and 23 counts of conspiracy to murder. He admitted directing terrorism, belonging to a banned organisation and helping people trying to murder a fellow informer in the UVF.
Haggarty acknowledged responsibility for 304 more minor offences.
His crimes spanned 1991 to 2007 – nine years after the Good Friday peace deal.
They include the murders of John Harbinson, 39, Sean McParland, 55, Sean McDermott, 37, and builders Gary Convie, 24, and Eamon Fox, 44, shot dead in their car as they ate lunch.
Eamon’s son Ciaran Fox said: “It’s hard sitting in court watching a guy admit to murdering your father.
“Police knew my father was going to be murdered and let it happen.”
Haggarty is understood to have made allegations against 14 fellow loyalists, including for murder.
He has also given evidence in relation to alleged crimes by two of his former Special Branch handlers.
Haggarty, 45, expects a heavily reduced jail term and could go free after sentencing in September, having already spent three years in custody. WHEN Cannon Wiggins’s twin brothers were born, he was in the same hospital having his first day of treatment after a shattering cancer diagnosis.
It was the start of a long, painful journey for the family.
But four years on, five-year-old Cannon has beaten neuroblastoma, the aggressive form of childhood cancer that almost took his life.
And £50,000 raised in his name will now be used to help other children in Scotland receive the life-saving treatment he did, through our Schiehallion Appeal with Glasgow Children’s Hospital Charity.
The birth in 2013 of twins Arran and Gray, now four, was not the joyful day it should have been for Cannon’s mum Melissa, 33, from Irvine.
Her toddler son was starting chemotherapy on the other side of the hospital in Orlando, Florida, where the family now live.
Days before, they had been told that Cannon’s cancer was already at stage four.
Melissa said: “Cannon had tumours everywhere – in his arms, legs and stomach. His stomach tumour was wrapped around his organs like an octopus.
“My mum was at the birth of the twins while my husband Michael was with Cannon. As soon as the twins were born, they wheeled me over to be with Cannon. It wasn’t the special time it should have been.
“Cannon got very sick very quickly. He went on to a feeding tube and after six rounds of chemo, we went to New York for surgery where they removed the primary tumour from his abdomen.
“He was on life support for five days. This was when we decided we would start to show the reality of paediatric cancer.
“It’s not always cute kids with bald heads, balloons and celebrities. It’s horrendous what these children go through.
“We took a picture of Cannon and that’s where we started our journey, showing what it looks like.”
Melissa, a former lawyer, and her American husband Michael, 53, started documenting Cannon’s journey through social media.
After surgery, Cannon went to Philadelphia for more than 100 hours of chemotherapy, followed by a stem cell transplant. He stayed in the same room for eight weeks.
Melissa said: “His body looked like he had been in a fire. You couldn’t touch him, he had boils all around his mouth and couldn’t move or walk. It was horrendous.”
Twelve rounds of proton radiation and immunotherapy followed.
During treatment, the family were dealt another blow – Cannon had a gene called N-myc amplified, which means sufferers are far more likely to relapse.
He started a two-year clinical trial aimed at preventing a relapse and endured chemo every day for the next two years.
In October last year, three-and-a-half years from the day of his diagnosis, Cannon took his last chemo pill.
Now enjoying a trip to Scotland with his family, he has been paddling in Loch Lomond with his brothers and visiting the Royal Hospital for Children in Glasgow, where the donation from his foundation will help other little boys and girls.
Melissa said: “I knew Cannon was going to win. I just felt it in my blood. I knew he was going to win the fight and that we were going to fight for other kids after that.”
Cannon’s parents set up the Cannonball Kids’ Cancer Foundation and Melissa wrote a book, Thankful for the Fight, detailing her son’s journey.
By the end of the year, three years after setting up the foundation, they will have raised $1million (£785,000) through donations and events. The foundation have made nine grants to fund trials in the US.
Their first grant outside America will go our Schiehallion Appeal, which aims to raise at least £500,000 for young cancer patients in Scotland.
An event on August 28 at Troon’s Dundonald Golf Links, which is