UDA victim’s brave father dies…

IN July 2001, paramedic Michael Brett was called to the scene of a shooting in Newtownabbey. He had been called to numerous scenes of terrorism in the past, including the Omagh bomb, but he couldn’t have guessed that this time it would be his own teenage son Gavin who would end up cradling in his arms as his life ebbed away. Tragically, this brave man passed away today, aged just 51. The murder, carried out under the UDA’s cowardly flag of convenience – the Red Hand Defenders – was a case of ‘mistaken identity’ (they thought he was a Catholic) and reinforced in many people’s minds the heartbreaking need to rid ourselves of paramilitarism.

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