A PORTADOWN mother of four yesterday in a Belfast court faced leading loyalist Mr Billy Wright, the man she claimed threatened to shoot her.
Mrs Gwendoline Reed (42) was giving evidence at the Crown Court trial of Mr Wright (36) of Hartfield Square, and two other Portadown men. Mrs Reed, who said she had known Mr Wright for more than 20 years, claimed he had threatened her outside a neighbour's home when she confronted him in his car as he talked to her son Thomas.
"Billy Wright was speaking to my son Thomas. I said `leave my son alone, you bastard'. Billy Wright turned round to me and said, `I'm going to fucking shoot you, Herron' - Herron was my maiden name," said Mrs Reed.
She added that Mr Wright, himself defying a death threat from the UVF, was angry and had pointed his finger at her as he threatened her, but he then sped off in his car when she called for someone to phone for the police. Asked how she felt about the threat, Mrs Reed replied: "It frightened the life out of me. I took him very seriously."
Earlier she identified Mr Wright's two co-accused, Mr Trevor Buchanan (29) of Corcrain Drive, and Mr Dale Weathered (28), from Ranfurley Road, as two of the men who attacked her 15-year-old daughter Nicola and her boyfriend the previous evening, August 9th, 1995.
Mrs Reed claimed that although both Mr Buchanan and Mr Weathered were masked at the dime she could still recognise them because she had known them for some time. She claimed they had been two of seven masked men armed with sledgehammers and pick-axe handles who had marched past her home in single file just moments before the attack.
Mrs Reed also identified a third man, but later told trial judge Lord Justice McCollum that, while she still believed he was involved, she was "not as sure now about him as I am about Buchanan and Weathered".
The trial continues today when Mrs Reed will be cross-examined by defence lawyers for Mr Wright, who denies threatening her, and by counsel for Mr Buchanan and Mr Weathered, who deny separate charges of assaulting her daughter and her boyfriend.