James Watt

James Watt also known as Tonto (born 21 September 1952) is a former Northern Irish loyalist who was the top bomb maker for the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in the mid-1970s. In 1978, Watt was convicted and given nine separate life sentences for murder and attempted murder. These included bombings which killed a ten-year-old boy and two teenagers in two attacks carried out in April 1977 as a part of a UVF bombing campaign against republicans. Following his release from prison in 1989 he left the organisation and in 1995 became a preacher having embraced Born-again Christianity while serving his sentence. Ulster Volunteer Force Watt was born in Belfast, Northern Ireland on 21 September 1952 and grew up in a Protestant family in Benview Park off the loyalist Ballysillan Road in North Belfast. His father worked as a park ranger at the Bone Hill playing fields. Employed as a fitter having left school to earn his apprenticeship in the trade, Watt joined the loyalist paramilitary organisation, the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in 1973 because, in his words, "the IRA were blowing up my city". He later told police that it had been "the right thing to do"; His role in the UVF Belfast Brigade was that of a bomb maker; his skills in that field ensured that by 1976 he was much in demand for operations that required the use of explosives. The UVF and the other loyalist paramilitary organisations lacked the expertise as regards bombmaking and therefore lagged considerably behind the IRA; nevertheless Watt achieved a reputation within the ranks as the UVF's top bomb maker. He was better known by his nickname "Tonto" taken from the Lone Ranger's American Indian companion.