Former footballer and one-time Mount Vernon UVF big wig lucky to escape with his life once again after being attacked in house
The one-time UVF big wig walked out of the hospital ward without telling staff because he feared attack while lying in hospital.
The 54-year-old suffered serious facial injury in the attack last weekend at a house in Glenarm Court in Ballymena but was in no mood to wait for treatment.
The Sunday World understands he didn’t consult medical staff and simply walked out.
Sources say after receiving initial medical care he disappeared into the night.
It is understood he was fearful of attack once word spread of his whereabouts. And we can reveal that a number of people were planning to pay him “a visit”.
Darren Moore
The crossbow bolt entered his right cheek and exited just below his jawline.
Moore is a marked man with a bounty on his head. He was lucky to survive last week’s attack, the latest in a long time of incidents that have variously left with serious injuries.
It is understood he is lying low in the Ballymena area but according to sources he is desperate to leave the country.
“His biggest problem is money, he doesn’t have any, certainly not enough to get out of the country,” a well-placed source told us.
“Nobody will want to be associated with him or be seen to help him.”
It’s a little over a week since Moore was struck in the face with the bolt during an incident at a house in Ballymena last Friday evening.
Sources in Ballymena have also told us the attack took place after Moore was with a group of people taking drugs, believed to be heroin and fentanyl.
A 42-year-old man, Matthew Allison, from Glenarm Court in Ballymena appeared in court accused of wounding Moore with intent to inflict grievous bodily harm.
Ballymena man Matthew Allison who is accused of shooting Darren Moore in the face with a crossbow.
In addition to wounding Moore, Allison is also charged with attempting to wound Mark Kennedy, also with intent to cause GBH, and possessing a crossbow with intent, all alleged to have been committed on August 8.
Allison did not apply for bail but it is understood the incident happened at Allison’s home.
Remanding Allison back into custody, District Judge Nigel Broderick adjourned the case to September 11, suggesting that if there is to be a bail application in the meantime, “the matter can be brought forward”.
This latest incident is yet another stage in what has been a downward spiral for one-time feared terror chief Moore.
In recent months he has been in the headlines for a series of shoplifting charges.
Earlier this year he was in court after trying to swallow a package of drugs after being stopped and searched by the PSNI.
Prior to that he had appeared in court a number of times on shoplifting charges as he tried to feed his chronic drug addiction.
His hauls include, on one occasion, 20 legs of lamb and other food items as well as bedding, pots and pans, alcohol and scented Yankee candles.
Darren Moore in bed in Antrim Area Hospital after being attacked in 2013
It has been a dramatic fall from grace for Moore who became a target for disaffected UVF members when he was kicked out of the organisation. Terror boss John ‘Bunter’ Graham is said to have washed his hands of him and a price was put on his head.
He has been running he gauntlet of numerous threats to his life over many years.
Stripped of UVF protection, he has escaped a series of attacks some of which have landed him in hospital.
From the highs of lifting the Irish League championship with Crusaders and lording it as a ruthless paramilitary boss, he is reduced to a broken shell of a drug addict.
In 2013 he was left for dead after a savage attack which left with broken legs and arms.
A broken and battered Moore was found in the grounds of a north Belfast primary school. He had been badly beaten, with what police believe was a claw hammer, and had both his arms and legs broken in the vicious attack.
Darren Moore holds up the Gibson Cup after winning the league with Crusaders in 1995
Moore was once king of the hill and as a leading figure in the notorious UVF unit in Mount Vernon he had a reputation for violence.
He and other members of the unit were unmasked as RUC Special Branch agents in a report published by then Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan in 2007.
Mount Vernon UVF, under the leadership of commander Mark Haddock, was responsible for a series of sectarian murders carried out with the full knowledge of police handlers.
All members were stood down after previously being protected by the UVF leadership.
Moore was linked to the gang behind the murder Raymond McCord jnr in 1997.
The 22-year-old had been summoned to a meeting at a remote quarry on the outskirts of the city.
Seeking assurances from Moore, a man he considered a friend, he was encouraged to go believing he would on the wrong end of a punishment attack at worst.
Instead the he was battered to death on the orders of Haddock. Everyone involved were on the Special Branch payroll.
Now Moore is the one living in fear of his life.
The attack in 2018 after which five men were jailed
In 2018 five men were jailed for their parts in another attack on hapless Moore.
He was badly beaten as he drank in a bar in the County Antrim village of Doagh the previous year.
Ten men were involved in what was described in court as an “almighty beating’’ and was believed to have been a revenge attack in relation to an earlier incident involving Moore.
So severe was that attack, which involved the use of a claw hammer, that a baseball bat wielded by one of his assailants broke in two as Moore was battered while lying on the ground.