Davy Payne

Davy Payne
Nickname(s)	"Psychopath"
Born	c. 1949 Belfast, County Antrim, Northern Ireland, UK
Died	March 2003 (aged 54) Belfast, Northern Ireland, UK
Allegiance	Ulster Defence Association
Rank	Brigadier
Unit	North Belfast Brigade (1974–1988)
Conflict	The Troubles

H. David "Davy" Payne (c. 1949 – March 2003) was a senior Northern Irish loyalist and a high-ranking member of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) during the Troubles, serving as brigadier of the North Belfast Brigade. He was second-in-command of the Shankill Road brigade of the Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF), which was the "cover name" of the militant branch of the UDA. The group was responsible for a series of abductions and killings of mostly Catholic civilians in the early 1970s.

He was arrested after being stopped at a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) checkpoint while driving the "scout" (lead) car for his UDA colleagues whose cars' boots contained large caches of weapons imported from Lebanon. He was convicted and sentenced to 19 years in prison.

Payne was born in Belfast and grew up in the loyalist Shankill Road area of West Belfast. His family belonged to the Free Presbyterian Church of Ulster. He remained a member of the church in adulthood and regularly attended services at the Martyrs' Memorial Church, the group's headquarters on the Ravenhill Road in south-east Belfast.

Payne was one of the original members of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) when it was formed from Ulster loyalist vigilante groups in September 1971. These groups, including the Woodvale Defence Association (WDA) and Shankill Defence Association (SDA), had sprung up following the outbreak in the late 1960s of the violent politico-religious conflict known as the Troubles. Payne, who had been a supporter of Gusty Spence and had rioted in 1966 following Spence's arrest, had been a member of both the Ulster Volunteer Force and Tara but took his entire "team" over to the UDA upon that organisation's foundation.

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