Leader of the organisation's A Company, Highfield, West Belfast Brigade, McQuiston spent more than 12 years in HM Prison Maze outside Lisburn for possession of weapons.
McQuiston was with a friend and they were on their way to the city centre; the boys rushed to the scene and saw the bodies of the infants as they were brought out of the rubble, wrapped in sheets.
Described by journalist David Lister as "stocky, and impish-faced", the five feet four McQuiston had a reputation among the UDA as a "messer", which is Belfast slang for a practical joker.
He had just gone into a pub when an IRA bomb went off in a fish shop below the LPA headquarters where it was believed senior UDA members, including Ulster Freedom Fighters (UFF) brigadier Johnny Adair, were having a meeting.
[7] McQuiston remained a popular and influential figure in Highfield, a loyalist estate located on the Upper Shankill and near the republican Ballymurphy area.
[3] He works alongside former IRA members in troubled interface areas near the west Belfast Peace Line where loyalists and republicans sometimes clash, especially during the annual 12 July Orange Order parades which commemorate the Battle of the Boyne.
This was particularly noted in the summer of 2003 when a relatively calm marching season followed at the interfaces of north and west Belfast as a result of co-operation between McQuiston and his Provisional IRA counterpart Sean "Spike" Murray.