The 47-year-old threatened the veteran UVF boss and others in a jaw-dropping rant – calling them “traitors” and warning them “we are coming for you”.
And during the astonishing, presumably drunken, rant the dope dealer also challenged the UVF’s second-in-command Harry Stockman – who becomes an OAP in a few months, to a similar punch-up.
Indeed Stockman – nicknamed ‘Harmless Harry’ is hardly much of a target either given he suffers from long-term injuries after he was stabbed more than ten times in an attempted murder bid 14 years ago.
McConnell’s outburst came in a bad week for the East Belfast UVF after another leading ex-boss, Derek ‘Banic’ Lammey, was remanded into custody on Wednesday for his Pitt Park intimidation and was told he face between two and three years behind bars when he’s sentenced this week.
Former East Belfast boss David McConnell, 43, was arrested this week after breaking into a womans house in East Belfast. The woman woke to find McConnell in her bedroom and then called police
News in 90 Seconds, Wednesday, October 22
In a Facebook post last week riddled with grammatical mistakes, McConnell – who once had a rape charge dropped after the alleged victim took her own life – appeared to announce he was going to war with the UVF hierarchy on the Shankill.
The Sunday World understands McConnell – who flits between Scotland and east Belfast these days – lost the plot after the UVF moved on the leadership in north Belfast and Monkstown.
It’s understood a number of senior UVF figures in that battalion have been stood down against their wishes – in much the same way the UVF dealt with Dee McConnell and his East Belfast leadership pals.
An enraged McConnell, either boozed-up or high on his own supply, took to social media to read the riot act to the UVF top brass.
“I’m no big man but I’ll tell anyone that wants to listen,” he started off.
“I’ve been a loyalist all my life, and would give my life for anyone that lives underneath the banner.
“I’ve let it go this far and said nothing but for me to let go it flys in the face of everything that went before me this can’t be let go on.
“Loyalist that want to live over this farce, to be under the banner of touts and state agents & informants you are nothing but sh**e on my shoe.
“I can call those state informers to stand down now, if not your f***ing traitors, 1st it East Belfast now it’s more legends from Monkstown.
“Anyone involved in the destruction of loyalism, mark my words we are coming for you!
“We won’t be mastered by the no sell out bastards!
“Bunter and Stocky if you had any balls you will come fight me man on man. Two complete plants wood, you have divided loyalism for your own ends for to long sell outs of Ulster.
“I’ll never forget.”
A source told the Sunday World McConnell’s ‘threat’ hasn’t gone unnoticed.
“Dee lost the plot big time and the Shankill saw it all,” said the source. “What was he thinking? Challenging an 80-year-old man with health issues to a punch-up? It just so happens that 80-year-old is the boss of the UVF.
“And threatening Harry Stockman is just as bad – he very nearly died when he was stabbed repeatedly by David Madine.
“He needed emergency surgery to save his life plus he’s 64 years old now so hardly makes you a big man by offering him a fight.”
Others who have had the misfortune to cross paths with McConnell have said they couldn’t believe what they were reading.
“McConnell must have been off his face when he wrote all that about being a loyalist,” said one ex-UVF man.
“He talks about the destruction of loyalism being the UVF leadership’s fault but maybe he should look at his own behaviour.
“He’s a convicted drug dealer, he was once charged with raping a girl who later took her own life and one of his best mates is actual convicted rapist Gerry Verner.
“He also got done for harassing a woman who said he broke into her house late at night. What kind of loyalist is he?”
McConnell was once one of the leading commanders in the East Belfast UVF and was close to east Belfast loyalist Stephen Matthews.
But his recent rant is not the first time he’s gone berserk on social media.
In 2019 McConnell went bonkers at the PSNI after they raided his house and seized a number of items.
During a social media rant about the raid he even appeared to threaten a top cop who, at the time, was heading up the Paramilitary Crime Task Force.
Luxury items including sports memorabilia and cash were taken from his home. The convicted drug pusher said the items belonged to a child and should not have been taken.
In 2014, McConnell was jailed for six months at Belfast Crown Court for possessing, supplying and producing cannabis after more than £20,000 worth of gear was found at a disused bakery in east Belfast.
In a recording made by the woman he was convicted of harassing, she says: “I pushed past him and ran out of my house even though I knew it was him, which made it a bit more scarier because I haven’t even been talking to him, so why was he at my house?
“It makes no sense.
“I think that’s the most shocking part… obviously he didn’t touch me but he wasn’t doing all of that to come in and ask me for a cup of tea.
“I shouted ‘f*** off, get away from my house, what do you want?’ I mean, he wasn’t that intoxicated; he was able to enter a home from a locked f***ing window.”