Cops have been granted an order under the Proceeds of Crime Act preventing Gary Matthews disposing of his assets before a High Court hearing, due to be heard early next year.

Sunday Life understands that the restraining order is related to a police investigation into alleged money laundering during which Jim 'Doris Day' Gray, his girlfriend Sharon Moss and Belfast estate agent Philip Johnston were all charged.

As Sunday Life revealed last week, killer-turned-artist Stone believes Gray stole two of his canvases and passed them on to his friends as gifts.

Matthews was Gray's 'business partner' and owned shares in the slain crime lord's former Belfast bars, the Bunch of Grapes and the Avenue One.

The pair were back in court last year when they tried to sue the Axa Insurance Company for more than £60,000 following a fire at the Bunch of Grapes in January, 2001.

Cops investigating the murder of loyalist hitman Geordie Legge shortly before the fire probed a possible link between the blaze and Legge's horrific death.

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