by James Tweedie

BELFAST loyalist paramilitary supergrass Gary Haggarty pleaded guilty yesterday to some 200 terrorist offences, including five murders.

Relatives of his victims looked on as the former Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) commander, who headed its notorious Mount Vernon unit in north Belfast, repeatedly answered guilty to the litany of charges put to him at the city’s crown court.

The long-serving police informant living in protective custody also admitted five attempted murders, including against police.

The offences span a 16-year period from 1991 to 2007 and include the sectarian murders of John Harbinson, Sean McParland, Gary Convie, Eamon Fox and Sean McDermott. No-one has been brought to justice for the 1994 double killing of Catholics Mr Convie and Mr Fox.

Mr Haggarty also admitted aiding and abetting a bid to murder fellow UVF terror chief and police informer Mark Haddock — himself accused of Mr Harbinson’s murder.

But Mr Haggarty is expected to receive a heavily reduced sentence in exchange for turning Queen’s evidence.

He may even be released following the trial, having already served three years in prison.

Outside the court, Mr Fox’s son Ciaran said police “knew what was going to happen and took no action” against their informant, adding: “Basically he was just a hitman — he killed at will.”

Communist Party of Ireland executive committee member Joe Bowers said: “This is further evidence of the British state’s role in some of the most heinous events of our past.”

The UVF is part of the Loyalist Communities Council umbrella organisation of paramilitary groups which endorsed the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP) just before the general election.

DUP leader Arlene Foster, now in talks with Downing Street on providing “confidence and supply” support to the minority Tory government, was quick to reject that support.

But newly elected Belfast South MP Emma Pengelly refused to call for the removal of UVF flags in part of her constituency earlier this week, saying residents she spoken to “didn’t want a public fuss around this matter.

“There were some people who were very supportive of the flags. People who felt very much it was part of the tradition of the local area and the wider area,” she said.

Ms Pengelly’s father Noel Little, a leader of loyalist paramilitary group Ulster Resistance and earlier a member of the Ulster Defence Regiment, was jailed for two years in the 1980s for arms-trafficking.