Banning people talking about certain things is stupid.. look at problems we’ve had in
Northern Ireland Peace negotiator on hate crime laws plan
on the outside, I always believed I’d go to prison or be dead. I went to jail so that meant that I didn’t go to a graveyard.
“I got out of prison when I was 34 and I’m now 65 so I have been involved for over 30 years in community work and politics so there is always a silver lining if you want to look for it.”
While behind bars, Hutchinson took a degree in social sciences and a diploma in town planning with the Open University. He also began working with Provisional IRA leader inmates on initiatives to end violence.
He said: “It was a long road to Damascus but I had time to think about what had to be done.
“A Provisional IRA commander approached me in prison to talk about some things. We were coming up with ideas about power sharing and sharing responsibility. We talked about getting
PLEAS
Speaking to police at a protest in Belfast in 2012 a priest and a minister together. They were both called Murphy so we called them the Smurfs.
“They were talking to the IRA and to the UVF but they were on the same political assembly and it was very helpful to have that process.
“It took a long time – nine years or whatever – to get to that point but it was through that we got some ceasefires. They weren’t always perfect but they worked to some extent.”
After his release in 1990, Hutchinson became a familiar face presenting Loyalist political demands as part of the peace process. He was nominated by the UVF as their point of contact with John de Chastelain and the Independent International Commission on Decommissioning in 2009.
In 2000 Hutchinson was caught up in a Loyalist feud that broke out between the UVF and the west Belfast brigade of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA).
UDA brigadier Johnny Adair – who now lives in Ayrshire – is said to have been so enraged at seeing Hutchinson being interviewed on TV that he phoned one of his deputies to “go and shoot him right now”.
Loyalist colleagues have also accused him of thinking “like a Republican” for arguing in favour of socialism and left-wing politics.
Hutchinson warned that having lived through decades of constitutional conf lict, Scotland must ensure its independence debate remains peaceful.
He added: “People can get aggressive about these things so you need to be very careful. Sometimes these tensions don’t develop right away but if you don’t get success in the first two years, things can start to change.”