Billy Elliot

Under questioning in 1998 by the RUC, Thomas Maginnis of Newtownards confessed to Elliot's killing; however he was freed by the Belfast Crown Court two years later after a judge ruled his confessions "inadmissible".

In 1996, two men (Christopher Sheals and Stephen Rules) were sentenced to life imprisonment for their part in Margaret Wright's murder. The three men who disposed of her body were each jailed for seven years. Elliot's widow Alison was given a three-year suspended jail sentence after she admitted to having helped him change his blood-stained clothing following the killing. Lord Justice Nicholson said he showed her leniency on account of her two children and the fact that her husband was killed, however "worthless a human being he may have been".

William "Billy" Elliot (c. 1964 – 28 September 1995) was a Northern Irish loyalist and a leading member of the Red Hand Commando (RHC) paramilitary organisation. He fled Northern Ireland after being implicated in the brutal 1994 murder of an epileptic Protestant woman, Margaret Wright, who was beaten and shot inside a south Belfast loyalist bandhall in the mistaken belief that she was a Catholic or informant for the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC). For his part in the murder, Elliot was gunned down by members of his own organisation.

Elliot was fatally shot at close range by RHC gunmen as he was getting into his car after leaving a friend's house in Primacy Park, Bangor, County Down on 28 September 1995. One bullet hit him in the back of the neck and another went through his ear, killing him instantly. When a woman came upon his body, he was still clutching his car keys. Elliot had been lured to the house by other RHC members on the orders of the unnamed commander of the group. His killing was sanctioned by both the UVF and RHC as a punishment for the brutal death of Margaret Wright which had provoked a public outcry and "tarnished" the RHC's image. According to Jim Cusack and Henry McDonald, Elliot had been a drug dealer and this too had helped to seal his fate as the RHC commander was strongly opposed to drug dealing by members of the organisation. The authors subsequently claimed that the killing had been carried out by Frankie Curry, a claim Curry himself corroborated in an interview shortly before his own death in 1999. Billy Hutchinson of the UVF-linked Progressive Unionist Party (PUP) offered the following statement justifying Elliot's punishment killing: "No one but close relatives will miss Elliot. The fact is, with him gone Northern Ireland's a wee bit safer place for all of us to live".

Elliot was implicated as the leader of the gang which killed Protestant woman Margaret Wright in the early hours of 6 April 1994. The 31-year-old woman from Forthriver Park, Glencairn estate had been inside the Ulster loyalist "Bad Bet" bandhall in Meridi Street (off the Donegall Road in the Village) where there was an all-night drink, drugs and rave music party in progress. The fortified bandhall, whose windows were blocked with concrete, was used as a meeting place for a local loyalist flute band. A sign outside read: "This hall is for band members only – no exceptions". Members of the Red Hand Commando, including Elliot, were also present that night. Wright had asked certain questions which led Elliot to believe she was a Catholic or an informant for the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) Drugs Squad. Allegedly acting under instructions from Elliot, the bandhall chairman Christopher Sheals met her on the dance floor and handed her over to Elliot and UVF man Ian Hamilton (21) for a "grilling" and "rompering" (loyalist paramilitary slang term for a beating and torture session typically followed by execution).

Six days later, Ian Hamilton was shot dead on a football pitch adjacent to a primary school in the Shankill Road area by members of the UVF's "Internal Security Unit" as punishment for his role in the killing. Elliot was branded an outlaw by the UVF. When he was arrested by the RUC for the second time in May 1994, he told them he was under a death threat and wore body armour as a means of protection. He then fled to Scotland for his safety. He returned to Northern Ireland some time after the Combined Loyalist Military Command ceasefire of 1994, but avoided his old haunts and settled in rural Cloughy instead.

Born in Belfast, Northern Ireland in about 1964 to an Ulster Protestant family, Elliot joined the Red Hand Commando (RHC), a loyalist paramilitary organisation formed in 1972 in the Shankill Road area of Belfast and closely affiliated with the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). He eventually rose in the ranks to become the group's second-in-command. He was also Officer Commanding (OC) of the RHC's South Belfast unit. He lived in the staunchly loyalist, working-class Village area of south Belfast.