Editing Billy Wright (loyalist) (section)

==Early years in the UVF==
[[File:High Street Portadown at night - geograph.org.uk - 1264915.jpg|thumb|left|Security barriers in [[Portadown]], [[County Armagh]] at the height of the Troubles. Wright made his home in Portadown from the time he transferred there as a teenager]]
In the more strongly loyalist environment of Portadown, nicknamed the "Orange Citadel",<ref name="taylor240"/> Wright was, along with other working-class Protestant teenagers in the area, targeted by the loyalist paramilitary organisation, the [[Ulster Volunteer Force]] (UVF) as a potential recruit. On 31 July 1975, coincidentally the night following the [[Miami Showband killings]], Wright was sworn in as a member of the [[Young Citizen Volunteers (1972)|Young Citizen Volunteers]] (YCV), the UVF's youth wing.<ref name="anderson25">{{harvnb|Anderson |2002 |p=25}}</ref> The ceremony was conducted by swearing on the Bible placed on a table beneath the [[Ulster banner]]. He was then trained in the use of weapons and explosives.<ref name="dillon58">{{harvnb|Dillon |1999 |p=58}}</ref> According to author and journalist [[Martin Dillon]], Wright had been inspired by the violent deaths of UVF men [[Harris Boyle]] and [[Wesley Somerville]], both of whom were blown up after planting a bomb on board [[The Miami Showband]]'s minibus. The popular Irish cabaret band had been returning from a performance in [[Banbridge]] in the early hours of 31 July 1975 when they were ambushed at Buskhill, [[County Down]] by armed men from the UVF's [[UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade|Mid-Ulster Brigade]] at a bogus military [[Security checkpoint|checkpoint]]. Along with Boyle and Somerville, three band members had died in the attack when the UVF gunmen had opened fire on the group following the premature explosion. Boyle and Somerville had allegedly served as role models for Wright.<ref name="dillon5860">{{harvnb|Dillon |1999 |pp=58–60}}</ref> Boyle was from Portadown. However, in his 2003 work ''The Trigger Men'', Dillon broke from this version of events and instead concluded that Wright had actually been sworn into the YCV in 1974 when he was 14 years of age. Wright's sister Angela told Dillon that her brother's decision to join the UVF had in fact had nothing to do with the Miami Showband killings and Dillon then concluded that Wright had encouraged this version of events as he felt linking his own UVF membership to the activities of his heroes Boyle and Somerville added an origin myth to his own life as a loyalist killer.<ref name="Dillon2526">{{harvnb|Dillon |2003 |pp=25–26}}</ref>

In 1975, shortly after Wright joined the organisation, he was caught in possession of illegal weapons and sentenced to five years in a wing of [[HMP Maze]] (Maze Prison) reserved for paramilitary youth offenders.<ref name="anderson26">{{harvnb|Anderson |2002 |p=26}}</ref> Before his imprisonment Wright was taken to Castlereagh Holding Centre, a police interrogation centre with a notorious reputation for the brutality employed during grilling. According to Wright's sister Angela, he later claimed that he had been subjected to a number of indignities by the interrogating officers, including having a pencil shoved into his rectum.<ref name="Dillon27">{{harvnb|Dillon |2003 |pp=27–28}}</ref> During his spell in prison Wright briefly joined the [[blanket protest]], although he stepped down following an order from the UVF's Brigade Staff (Belfast leadership), who feared that prisoner participation in the protest was being interpreted as a show of solidarity with the Provisional IRA.<ref name="anderson2627">{{harvnb|Anderson |2002 |pp=26–27}}</ref> Inside the Maze he became the wing commander of H Block 2.

Wright later claimed that his decision to join the YCV had been influenced by the [[Kingsmill massacre]] of January 1976, when ten local Protestant civilians were killed by republicans. Wright's cousin Jim Wright, future father-in-law Billy Corrigan, and brother-in-law Leslie Corrigan, were also killed by republicans in this period.<ref name="guardian.co.uk"/> Wright later said of the Kingsmill massacre, "I was 15 when those workmen were pulled out of that bus and shot dead. I was a Protestant and I realised that they had been killed simply because they were Protestants. I left Mountnorris, came back to Portadown and immediately joined the youth wing of the UVF. I felt it was my duty to help my people and that is what I have been doing ever since."<ref name="toby">{{cite book |last=Harnden |first=Toby |author-link=Toby Harnden |title=Bandit Country, the IRA and South Armagh |publisher=Coronet |year=1999 |location=UK |page=140 |isbn=978-0-340-71736-3}}</ref>
Locals say he was also "indoctrinated" by local loyalist paramilitaries;<ref name="guardian.co.uk" /> however he had personally come to the conclusion that the UVF was the only organisation that had the "moral right" to defend the Protestant people.

Wright was released from the Maze Prison in 1980. Whilst inside he had nursed a deep resentment against the [[government of the United Kingdom|British]] state for having imprisoned him for being a loyalist. He was met in the car park by his aunt and girlfriend. In a final act of defiance against the authorities, Wright raised his face up towards a [[British Army]] [[observation tower]] on the Maze's perimeter fence and shouted "Up the UVF".<ref name="anderson28">{{harvnb|Anderson |2002 |p=28}}</ref> Following his release, he went to Scotland where he lived for a brief period. He had been there only six weeks when he was taken in for questioning by the Anti-Terrorist Squad based at [[New Scotland Yard]]. Although he was not charged with any offences, Wright was nonetheless handed an exclusion order banning him from [[Great Britain]].<ref name="Dillon29">{{harvnb|Dillon |2003 |p=29}}</ref>

Not long after his release from the Maze Prison, Wright was re-arrested, along with a number of UVF operatives in the area on evidence provided by Clifford McKeown, a "[[Supergrass (informer)|supergrass]]" within the movement. Wright was charged with [[murder in English law|murder]], [[attempted murder]], and the possession of explosives. He was detained in [[HM Prison Crumlin Road|Crumlin Road Prison]] for ten months. The cases, however, ended without any major convictions after McKeown changed his mind and ceased giving evidence.<ref name="uvf230">{{harvnb|Cusack |McDonald |1997 |p=230}}</ref>