Rapist's car torched as UVF moves on Dee's (pal) cohort.

The UVF torched a number of cars this week in a deadly warning to ex-squaddie and convicted rapist Gerry 'Vermin' Verner we can reveal. Thugs set alight a Ford Kuga, according to police, but the flames spread to two other vehicles parked outside a block of flats in Inveraray Avenue in the early hours of Tuesday morning where the 43-year-old had been living under the protection of the UVF.

It's also the same block of flats where convicted drug-dealer and former UVF commander David 'Dee' McConnell lives when he's in Belfast. Our picture shows one of the cars damaged though it's if it was the main target. The other two cars were removed by Wednesday morning but the third remained there for several days after the attack.

Verner has a notorious reputation having assaulted four women including subjecting one to a terrifying ordeal, threatening to cut off her fingers before raping her. 

                      PROTECTION

After serving seven years of a 10-year sentence behind bars, he was released in 2018 but told not to return to north Belfast by the UDA. Fortunately for him, while he was in he palled up with east Belfast ex-UVF boss McConnell - who once faced a rape charge himself until the criminal charges were dropped when his female accuser took her own life. 

The UVF gave Verner protection - much to the disgust of locals in east Belfast - and it's understood a group of local women made it clear to the local UVF (unit) leadership just how disgusted they were. And McConnell helped set Verner up in an apartment - in the same block McConnell lived in himself. 

But when the local newspaper the Sunday World (pictured above) run with the story at the time, Jamie Bryson came out on Twitter to defend 'Vermin Verner' (a copy of the Tweet can be seen below) and protect the reputation of the East Belfast UVF. 

But Verner was returned to prison in 2019 after breaching his licence by hanging out with members of the local unit of the UVF and with the likes of McConnell, who has a conviction for drug dealing. While inside, the UVF turned on Verner and withdrew their support for him, coinciding with McConnell reportedly being stood down from the UVF for allegedly trousering cash. 

Verner was expected to be released recently but he told pals inside he was planning to start a new life in Scotland - once again, and no doubt coincidentally, just like David 'Dee' McConnell has done. 

Locals reported a car burnt-out on Monday night (pictured above) belonging to Verner and it's not clear if he has actually been released from jail or if he's in the country as the charred remains of one high-end vehicle was still sitting melted to its parking space all week. 

Police confirmed to the Sunday World they don't believe the two gun attacks in the same area this week - one of them on the same night as the arson attack - are linked. They said: "Police are appealing for information following the report of a car on fire in the Inveraray Avenue area of east Belfast in the early hours of Tuesday morning (March 1st)." At 2.45am, it was reported to police that a car, a Ford Kuga, parked in the area had been set alight. The fire then spread to two cars parked nearby with a second car also sustaining extensive damage." The fire is being treated as arson at this stage. A man at the scene at the time was described as wearing a gray tracksuit with the hood pulled up over his head. He ran off in the direction of Hollywood Road before getting into another vehicle and making off." 

The move against Verner could signify the end of Dee McConnell's 'welcome' in east Belfast as not only is the attack on Verner being viewed as a warning sign to him for him for inviting Verner into the east in the first place. A judge in 2012 said she was passing an extended sentence on Verner as she believed he was a danger to women. Verner had taken the woman prisioner to his home and sexually attacked her. At one point he promised an interrogation of "10 minutes of honesty" but that for each supposed lie she told, he could cut off the tip of one of her fingers. 

With many thanks to the: Sunday World and Stephen Moore for the EXCLUSIVE original story - steven.moore@sundayworld.com

Follow these links to find out more updates on this story: Belfast Rapist Gerry Verner Back in Jail

Car Arson Was Deliberate Police Say.

UVF Boss and Bryson's Cohort Dee McConnell exiled to Scotland

THE writing's on the wall for ex-UVF boss Dee McConnell as he flees to his secret bolthole in Scotland. The convicted drug-dealer - once accused of raping a woman - has been left in no doubt his days in the notorious east Belfast gang are over.

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.

Follow this link for another blogging site to find out more about this exclusive story: LAD - Wee Jamie has always kept bad company but his chum