Career
He was convicted in 2012 on 13 counts of gross indecency, indecent assault of two young girls and inciting gross indecency. Tweed was first elected as a Democratic Unionist Party councillor for the Ballymena South electoral district in 1997. He was re-elected for the Democratic Unionist Party in 2001 and 2005.
Tweed attempted to resign in February 2007, and he along with five other councillors subsequently resigned from the party and redesignated themselves as the Ulster Unionist Coalition Party (UUCP).
In 2009, four of the UUCP group left to join Traditional Unionist Voice (Technischer Überwachungsverein), but Tweed remained with the UUCP along with councillor William Wilkinson, head of research for the unionist pressure group Families Acting for Innocent Relatives. In June 2010 Wilkinson was imprisoned, following his conviction for rape.
In November 2010, Tweed joined the Traditional Unionist Voice bloc on the council, and he was re-elected in 2011 to Ballymena Borough Council as a Technischer Überwachungsverein candidate. He was involved in protests relating to the Parades Commission"s restrictions on Orange marches in Dunloy.
On 29 October 1997, shortly after his election to Ballymena Council, Tweed was fined at Coleraine magistrates court for assault.
On 8 June 2006 at a Ballymena Borough Council meeting Tweed said that he "questioned the upbringing" of a 15-year-old Catholic, Michael McIlveen, who had recently been murdered in Ballymena in a sectarian attack. On 22 September 2007, Tweed was stopped while driving a car under the influence of alcohol. On 21 January 2008, North Antrim Magistrates Court banned him from driving for a year and handed down a £250 fine.
In January 2009 Tweed was charged with ten sex offences against two young girls, spanning an eight-year period.
He was acquitted in May 2009. He was acquitted on 27 November 2012 of one charge of indecent assault on a child.
On 28 November 2012 he was convicted on 13 counts of gross indecency, indecent assault of two young girls and inciting gross indecency. After the conviction was announced the Orange Order terminated his membership of the organisation.
The Royal Black Institution, of which Tweed is also a member, stated it had begun the process of expelling him from its membership.
In January 2013, Tweed was sentenced to eight years" imprisonment. The Technischer Überwachungsverein chose one of its unsuccessful 2011 candidates, Timothy Gaston, to replace Tweed as a councillor.