The wife of jailed loyalist paramilitary boss Johnny Adair went to court today to demand the right to a council house.
Mrs Gina Adair fled Northern Ireland with a group of her husband's supporters after they were driven out of their stronghold in the Lower Shankill area of Belfast by a rival loyalist faction.
They originally travelled to Scotland before making their way to the Horwich area of Bolton, Greater Manchester, where she began renting a private house.
Mrs Adair applied to Bolton Metropolitan Borough Council for a home in March but was turned down. Her appeal against the decision was also rejected in June.
Today, she took her case to Manchester County Court asking for the appeal decision to be quashed. The court was told that the council had rejected her application for a house on the basis that she was "voluntarily homeless".
The violence, or threat of violence, which had caused her to leave Belfast had been brought upon herself through her family's involvement in terrorist activities or serious crime, said Mr Christopher Baker, representing the council. If it had not been for the feud between loyalist factions which followed Adair's release from prison last year, she would not have been homeless, he said.
But Mrs Adair's lawyer Mr James Stark said the council had not made proper inquiries to determine whether she was in any way involved with crime or anti-social behaviour. It did not speak to the PSNI, despite Mrs Adair making it clear on her application for a council house that the service was best placed to back up her claims that she had received death threats.
In May, five shots were fired into Mrs Adair's house in Bolton through a back window. Nobody was hurt but the Ulster Freedom Fighters have since warned that any visit by her or her husband's supporters to Northern Ireland "would not pass without incident".
PA