William Moore (loyalist)

William Moore
William Moore
Born	1949 Belfast, Northern Ireland
Died	17 May 2009 (aged 60) Belfast, Northern Ireland
Cause of death	Heart attack
Nationality	British
Other names	Billy Moore
Occupation	Meat packer
Known for	Member of the Shankill Butchers gang

William Moore, often known as Billy Moore (1949 – 17 May 2009), was an Ulster loyalist from Belfast, Northern Ireland. He was a member of the Shankill Butchers, an Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) gang. It was Moore who provided the black taxi and butcher knives which the gang used to carry out its killings. Following ringleader Lenny Murphy's arrest, Moore took over as the de facto leader of the gang and the killings continued.

Moore was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland and brought up a Protestant in the staunchly Ulster loyalist Shankill Road. Moore, who had a few previous convictions for petty crime, worked as a meat packer at Woodvale Meats on the Shankill. When he quit his job, he took with him an assortment of butcher's knives and a meat cleaver. He then became a taxi driver, having bought a black taxi which he drove around the Shankill area. In 1975, Moore met Lenny Murphy in the Brown Bear pub on the Shankill Road. Murphy, who was assembling the gang that become known as the Shankill Butchers, recruited Moore into the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Their first action, which did not involve the knife-wielding violence that was to become their hallmark, occurred on 2 October 1975 when Moore and Murphy, along with two unidentified UVF members, robbed a Catholic-owned off-licence. Despite having been ordered just to rob the off-licence, the gang killed four Catholic employees in the process, two women and two 18-year-olds. Moore and Murphy escaped and, although the other two members were arrested, they did not name Moore or Murphy as having been involved.

Beginning in November 1975, the gang started abducting and murdering Roman Catholics, apparently in retaliation for the killing of four British soldiers by the Provisional IRA that same month. Moore was ordered by Murphy to drive around Catholic areas of Belfast in his taxi with the other gang members looking for prospective victims. Murphy and the other Butchers would bundle victims into the back of the taxi, then beat and torture them, before Murphy would finally drag them out into an alley and cut their throats with the weapons supplied by Moore. Journalist Peter Taylor spoke to a UVF member who explained that the Shankill Butchers had opted to use knives rather than guns because had they been caught with the latter the prison sentence received would be much longer.

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