An ex-UVF commander has fled Northern Ireland for Scotland after being accused of terrorising a woman by breaking into her home.
A hate campaign triggered by the allegations has forced David “Dee” McConnell to leave Belfast and move to Glasgow where he has a partner and children, sources claim.
McConnell was formerly a senior lieutenant in the Ulster Volunteer Force but was thrown out of the leadership three years ago after an internal spat over drug deals.
But he has been targeted by loyalist groups after he was accused of breaking into a woman’s home in a loyalist area.
McConnell, 43, was arrested last month after the woman claimed he smashed into her home in East Belfast’s Dee Street.
The terrified woman posted accounts of the break-in on social media including a recording of her emergency call to cops.
In the recording an intruder is heard banging her door and she tells the police operator: “He’s coming through my window now.”
She claimed the intruder got into her home through a kitchen window, sneaked upstairs and into her bedroom.
The woman said on social media, she managed to push past him and run from her home.
A large section of graffiti, likely sanctioned by the UVF, was daubed on a wall in a loyalist stronghold last week calling McConnell a “scumbag b*****d” with a target warning beside it.
McConnell faced a rape trial in 2013 but the case was dropped after his accuser killed herself.
A source said: “It is common knowledge that he has gone to Scotland and that he is not welcome back in Northern Ireland at the moment. He has upset the wrong people.”
In 2014, McConnell was jailed for six months at Belfast Crown Court for possessing, supplying and producing cannabis.
A Police Service of Northern Ireland spokesman said: “A man, 43, was arrested on suspicion of burglary on February 1. He has since been released on bail pending further enquiries.”
