A Belfast judge yesterday commended a leading Portadown loyalist, Mark Fulton, for his work to have guns belonging to the Loyalist Volunteer Force decommissioned, as he jailed him for 4 1/2 years for using a pistol to assault and threaten a man last December.
Fulton, from Hobson Park, Portadown, had been accused of possessing the Mab self-loading pistol with intent and under suspicious circumstances, but those charges were dropped when he admitted assault and having the gun on December 5th last year with intent to cause a person to believe unlawful violence would be used against him.
At the time he claimed that he was on his way to decommission the semi-automatic pistol. He was arrested after firing the gun during an altercation with a passer-by.