Orange Volunteers - Police Crackdown

Police Crackdown

In a series of police raids aimed at dissident loyalists in Autumn 1999, eight arrests were made, weapons, pipe bombs and ammunition were recovered and a search of Stoneyford Orange Hall in County Antrim uncovered military files containing the personal details of over 300 republicans from South Armagh and Belfast. Peeples and another loyalist were arrested by the RUC after their car was stopped on the outskirts of Dungannon and two hand grenades and a pipe bomb were discovered. In 2001 he was jailed for ten years for possession of the weapons. He was released in 2004 and became the minister of a Pentecostal church on the Shankill Road in Belfast. Four other members of the group were convicted of a range of terrorist offences, including possession of an automatic rifle, in December 2000.