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Davy Tweed

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David Tweed
Member of Ballymena Borough Council
In office
21 May 1997 – 14 February 2013
Preceded byFrederick Coulter
Succeeded byTimothy Gaston
ConstituencyBallymena South
Personal details
Born(1959-11-13)13 November 1959
Dunloy, County Antrim, Northern Ireland
Died28 October 2021(2021-10-28) (aged 61)
Political partyTraditional Unionist Voice (2009 - 2012)
Democratic Unionist Party (1997 - 2007)
Other political
affiliations		Independent (2012 - 2013)
UUCP (2007 - 2010)

David Alexander Tweed[1] (13 November 1959 – 28 October 2021) was a Northern Irish unionist politician, Irish rugby union international and serial child sex offender.

He was convicted as a child sex offender and served four years in prison for child sex abuse. His conviction was later quashed on a technicality, due to the wording of the direction given to the jury in his child sex abuse trial. Despite this legal 'loophole', he is still widely recognised as a domestic abuser towards his former partner, and as the sexual abuser of a number of her children and of other children to whom he had trusted access.

Despite his tawdry and allegedly abusive and paedophilic tendencies, he was lauded upon his death as a "larger than life character" by members of the Democratic Unionist Party (DUP), and by Jim Allister, leader of the Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV).

As a politician, Tweed served as a Ballymena Borough Councillor for the Ballymena South DEA from 1997 to 2013.

Sport

Tweed won four caps for Ireland in the mid-1990s, with his first, against France, in 1995.[2]

Political career

Tweed was first elected as a DUP councillor for the Ballymena South electoral district in 1997.[3] He was re-elected for the DUP in 2001 and 2005.[3]

In 2007 Tweed was among six Ballymena DUP councillors who refused to canvass for the party in the Assembly elections because of the DUP's policy of sharing power with Sinn Féin.[4] Tweed attempted to resign in February 2007,[5] and he along with five other councillors subsequently resigned from the party and redesignated themselves as the Ulster Unionist Coalition Party (UUCP).[6]

In 2009, four of the UUCP group left to join Traditional Unionist Voice (TUV),[7] but Tweed remained with the UUCP along with councillor William Wilkinson, head of research for the unionist pressure group Families Acting for Innocent Relatives. In June 2010 Wilkinson was imprisoned, following his conviction for rape.[8] In November 2010, Tweed joined the Traditional Unionist Voice bloc on the council,[9] and he was re-elected in 2011 to Ballymena Borough Council as a TUV candidate.[3]

Tweed was a member of the Orange Order and belonged to a lodge in Dunloy. He was involved in protests relating to the Parades Commission's restrictions on Orange marches in Dunloy.[10][11]

Loyalist involvement

Between 1996 and 1999, Tweed was involved in the Harryville dispute when loyalists picketed a Catholic church in Ballymena.[12][13]

On 8 June 2006, at a Ballymena Borough Council meeting, Tweed said that he "questioned the upbringing" of a 15-year-old Catholic, Michael McIlveen, who had recently been murdered in Ballymena in a sectarian attack. He also claimed people linked to the victim's family had been involved in intimidation of Protestants after the murder.[14]

On 29 October 1997, shortly after his election to Ballymena Council, Tweed was fined at Coleraine magistrates court for assaulting a man in a pub.[15]

On 22 September 2007, Tweed was stopped while driving a car under the influence of alcohol. On 21 January 2008, North Antrim Magistrates Court banned him from driving for a year and handed down a £250 fine.[16]

Sexual abuse cases

In January 2009, Tweed was charged with ten sex offences against two young girls, spanning an eight-year period; he was acquitted in May 2009.[17][18]

He was acquitted on 27 November 2012 of one charge of indecent assault on a child.[1][19]

On 28 November 2012, he was convicted on 13 counts of gross indecency, indecent assault of two young girls and inciting gross indecency, spanning an eight-year period from 1988 onwards.[20] His conviction was quashed on 25 October 2016, due to issues around presentation of evidence of bad character. As he had served almost four years in prison he was not retried.[21][22] in November 2021 Tweed's stepdaughter Amanda Brown spoke on BBC Radio Ulster TalkBack programme, of the alleged sustained sexual abuse she suffered at his hands. She questioned the appeal process and explained the reason she was unable to face a further court case. Brown called on the prominent politicians who eulogised him at the time of his death to reconsider their remarks. Her siblings have also spoken of their alleged experiences of Tweed's sexual abuse,[23] Victoria and Catherine Alexander Tweed waived their right to anonymity to speak of this abuse.[24]

After the conviction was announced the Orange Order terminated his membership of the organisation. The Royal Black Institution, of which Tweed was also a member, stated it had begun the process of expelling him from its membership.[25] Pending sentencing he remained a member of Ballymena Borough Council and of the TUV,[20] although the party announced on 15 November 2012 that it had 'suspended' his membership "not because we doubt his innocence, but because this is what the party rules require."[26] The TUV noted that the sex offences related "to a period long before he was a member of this party".[27] The TUV chose one of its unsuccessful 2011 candidates, Timothy Gaston, to replace Tweed as a councillor.[28][29]

Personal life

Tweed was born on a farm outside Dunloy in Ballymoney, County Antrim in November 1959. He married in 1984, he and his wife had four children; the family lived in Ballymoney. Prior to his 2012 conviction Tweed was estranged from his wife, Margaret, and had been living in Ballymena. Employed as an infrastructure supervisor for Northern Ireland Railways, he previously worked as a bouncer at a Ballymoney bar.[30]

Tweed died in a motorcycle crash on 28 October 2021 in County Antrim, at the age of 61.[31]

Following his death, members of his family, and the victims of his now-quashed conviction due to lack of evidence, have spoken of the effect on them of his alleged sexual and physical abuse.[32][33][34]

References

  1. ^ a b "Former Ireland rugby international cleared of one child sex abuse charge". BreakingNews.ie. 27 November 2012. Retrieved 27 November 2012.
  2. ^ 'Injury forces Ireland's Cronin to withdraw', The Times page 40, 3 March 1995
  3. ^ a b c "Ballymena Council Elections 1993-2011". Ark.ac.uk.
  4. ^ "Newsletter – Gang of six refuse to campaign for DUP party leader".
  5. ^ "Parties hit by more resignations". BBC News. 1 March 2007. Retrieved 29 July 2014.
  6. ^ "Newshound: Links to daily newspaper articles about Northern Ireland". www.nuzhound.com. Archived from the original on 21 April 2021. Retrieved 1 May 2012.
  7. ^ "News Letter report of UUCP defections to TUV".
  8. ^ [1] BBC report of Wilkinson's sentence
  9. ^ TUV press release Archived 23 April 2013 at archive.today, 6 November 2010
  10. ^ Dunloy lodge hits out at 'Being denied rights' The Newsletter
  11. ^ "Tweed and his LOL lose appeal over parade ban". Belfast Telegraph. 26 February 2009.
  12. ^ "David Tweed: Former councillor dies in motorcycle crash". BBC News. 29 October 2021. Retrieved 1 November 2021.
  13. ^ "Former Ireland rugby international David Tweed dies in motorbike crash". TheJournal.ie. 29 October 2021. Retrieved 1 November 2021.
  14. ^ McIlveen family Tweed comments Archived 3 March 2016 at the Wayback MachineNuzhound
  15. ^ "A Chronology of the Conflict - 1997". Conflict Archive on the Internet. 2004. Archived from the original on 10 October 2004. Retrieved 23 November 2021.
  16. ^ "Councillor caught drink driving". 2008.
  17. ^ "Ex-rugby star is cleared over 10 sex charges". Belfast Telegraph. 23 May 2009.
  18. ^ Report of Tweed's 2009 acquittal, newsletter.co.uk; accessed 3 May 2015.
  19. ^ "David Tweed trial; jury clears him on one count, 13 others remain". BBC News. 27 November 2012.
  20. ^ a b "Former Irish rugby international David Tweed guilty of child sex abuse". Belfast Telegraph. 29 November 2012. Retrieved 29 July 2014.
  21. ^ "PPS to decide if ex-Ireland rugby player David Tweed will face retrial over child sex abuse claims". Belfast Telegraph.
  22. ^ "David Tweed: Former Ireland rugby international child sexual abuse convictions quashed". BBC News. 25 October 2016.
  23. ^ "Talkback - 19/11/2021 - BBC Sounds". www.bbc.co.uk.
  24. ^ "David Tweed's daughters reveal the 'monster' he really was after years of sexual abuse at hands of late rugby star father". Belfasttelegraph – via Belfast Telegraph.
  25. ^ "David Tweed expelled from Orange Order due to abuse conviction", bbc.co.uk, 29 November 2012.
  26. ^ News Letter, Belfast, 15 November 2012
  27. ^ "Tweed remarks hurt family, says mum of murder victim", The Irish News, 30 November 2012.
  28. ^ Maeve Connolly, "TUV replaces sex abuser ex-councillor", [The Irish News], 16 February 2013
  29. ^ Connolly, Maeve (16 February 2013). "TUV replaces sex abuser ex-councillor". [The Irish News].
  30. ^ "Tweed among toughest in Irish rugby". The News Letter. 28 November 2012. Archived from the original on 17 January 2013.
  31. ^ "Former Ireland rugby international David Tweed dies in motorcycle crash". Belfast Telegraph. ISSN 0307-1235. Retrieved 29 October 2021.
  32. ^ Watterson, Johnny. "Davy Tweed: Secondrow. Four caps". The Irish Times.
  33. ^ "David Tweed tributes 'massively disrespectful to victims'". BBC News. 19 November 2021.
  34. ^ "Davy Tweed's sister who has a history of mental health problems and suffers from memory lose says she still lives in fear' despite his death". Independent.ie. 21 November 2021.
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