Graffiti denouncing the commander as a rapist - despite the charges being dropped - have been sprayed across his old Belfast stomping ground. UVF bosses have had enough of his escapades including inviting rapist Gerry 'Vermin' Verner into the east. But the final straw came when he was accused of breaking into the home of a woman four weeks ago and it has emerged she's now made a statement to the cops.
DEPOSED UVF commander Dee McConnell has been targeted in a sinister hate campaign weeks after being accused of breaking into a woman's house.
Graffiti with his name and seemingly some type of target (pictured below) was plastered across a number of walls in east Belfast, suggesting his time as a leading loyalist commander are 'over & out'.
We can reveal McConnell, a one time trusted lieutenant of so-called alleged East Belfast UVF boss Stephen 'Mackers' Matthews, fled to Scotland after he was arrested for allegedly breaking into the home of a terrified woman five weeks ago. Now the convicted drug-dealer may be forced to relocate to his Scottish bolthole permanently after an orchestrated campaign targeting him appears to suggest he's lost the support of the UVF. But we can reveal the 43-year-old convicted loyalist has a ready-made family in Glasgow including a partner and two children. Pictures posted by his partner over the last few years reveal McConnell has a double-life across the Irish Sea and its nowhere near the Protocol Irish-Sea-Border.
COCKTAILS
Photographs show McConnell, once charged with raping a woman before the case was dropped, sipping cocktails in Dubai and last year celebrating wildly at a gender reveal party for his soon-to-be-born son. And it's here he fled to after he was in east Belfast after cops received a 999 call from a petrified woman who was alone in her house when he came calling. Now he appears to be under pressure to stay in Scotland after his recent arrest. Graffiti calling McConnell a 'rapist' and a 'scumbag b*****d' (sic) was sprayed on several walls in the UVF's east Belfast heartland.
McConnell was never convicted of rape but had been charged with the offence before the charge was withdrawn after the woman making the claim took her own life almost 10 years ago. It was reported that a number of "big men" were seen carrying out one of the spray-paint attacks at around 8pm. A circle with a line symbol pointing through it is being viewed as meaning McConnell is a target (photograph of grafffi posted below). "McConnell's days appear to be numbered," said a UVF source. "This graffiti went up when it was still early in the evening and there were plenty of people who seen it being done.
"Either they have a massive set of balls or they had permission from the UVF - or more likely it was the UVF who were behind this.
"The graffiti seems to have some kind of target sign at the end of it looks like a threat being made to him. An attack on a number of cars at an apartment block where McConnell lives when he's not in Scotland is being seen as an attack on him as well as his convicted rapist pal Gerry 'Vermin' Verner, who McConnell had given protection to after Verner was told to leave north Belfast by the UDA. McConnell had reportedly been deposed from the UVF two years ago after the organisation accused him of running unsanctioned drug rackets and pocketing the cash for himself. Despite this he has remained close to the UVF leadership who allowed him to remain a member. As revealed in the Sunday World last month, McConnell was arrested by PSNI officers on Dee Street, yards from the home where a woman claimed he had broken into her house. And we can reveal the woman has since made an official complaint to the PSNI and given statements about finding McConnell inside her house. She claimed through social media after the incident she had found the convicted loyalist drug dealer in her home late at night and she ran past him out of her own house after screaming at him to "f***k off". She posted pictures on social media of a damaged window and something smashed in the kitchen.
She also recorded the moment McConnell was at her front door and he can be heard banging on it for a prolonged period before the terrified woman is heard saying, almost in tears, "He's coming through my window now". At the time voice recordings from the woman were posted on social media, stating she hadn't yet given a place statement, but we understand that has now changed. A source who knows the woman - who it's understood has since fled her home - says she intends to see McConnell in court and is determined he will be punished. And they have revealed the woman is claiming that after refusing to let him in, McConnell entered through a kitchen window and then crept up the stairs before opening her bedroom door. The source says the woman has told friends, having already called the cops, she pushed past him and fled out of her own house. It's understood McConnell had been boozing in the nearby Welders Club before the alleged incident. On Saturday night the police confirmed nobody had been charged with the incident. They reiterated their precious line saying: "A 43-year-old man was arrested in the Dee Street area of east Belfast on suspicion of burglary on Tuesday, February 1st. He has since been released on bail pending further inquiries." The Sunday World understands the UVF carried out their own inquiry into the incident and bosses including Stephen Matthews have become fed up with McConnell's antics.
McConnell was Matthews 'right-hand-man in the east but McConnell's constant partying and erratic behaviour has seen the UVF hierarchy grow weary of him. Matthews has consistently denied being a member of the UVF and claims he has no involvement in criminality. "McConnell could do no wrong in Macker's eyes but then he brought in Gerry Verner and that did them massive damage," said a source. "Local women were furious a nasty rapist like Verner was given sanctuary on their doorstep and when Verner was returned to jail it was made clear he wouldn't be allowed back.
" This all reflected badly on McConnell and then they discovered he was pocketing money that should have been the UVF's. McConnell is famous for his drug parties. There's never any shortage of cocaine and it seems that it has rotted his brain and he's making bad decisions." In a voice recording shared widely on social media in the aftermath of the break-in, the woman is heard saying:" I've been sitting in silence most days because my mind is so at peace and he's took that away from me now because I'm going, when I see or hear a noise I'm going is that somebody coming round to tell me not to make a statement?"
She then explains that she called police who took forensic swabs but that she had been too upset to make a statement at that stage." I don't know if he's out or not. I didn't make a statement yet - yet being the most important word - but they've got prints and fibres so I don't know if they'll (PSNI) go ahead and do it themselves.
" The police wanted me to make a statement on Saturday, but I was too exhausted, my body went into shock." News that she's now supplied a statement of the events of that night will have rocked McConnell. In 2004 Dee McConnell was jailed for six months for possessing, supplying and producing cannabis after more than £20,000 worth of gear was found at a disused bakery shop in east Belfast. The same year a charge of rape was withdrawn at the same court when the alleged victim took her own life. In 2010 Belfast City Council kicked McConnell out of one of its offices he was using in the Inveraray Community Centre at Sydenham after a series of Sunday World exposes nailing him as a UVF gangster and drug dealer. Three years ago McConnell was one of 11 people scooped in raids when he took to Facebook to vent his fury at the senior officer in the Paramilitary Crime Task Force (PCTF).
With many thanks to the: Sunday World and Stephen Moore for the EXCLUSIVE original story.
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