The funeral of 78-year-old Gusty Spence, the former leader of the UVF paramilitary organisation, has taken place in Belfast.
Gusty Spence was a significant figure in loyalist Belfast for most of his life. His funeral service is taking place at Saint Michael's church off the Shankill Road.
In line with Mr Spence’s wishes, his coffin was draped with the flag of the Royal Ulster Rifles, the British army regiment in which he served for six years before he joined the UVF in the 1960s.
The UVF carried out dozens of sectarian murderers and it was while he was serving a sentence in Long Kesh prison for his role in the murder of a Catholic that Mr Spence began to change his views about the use of violence.
He would go on to hold private talks with the then Taoiseach Albert Reynolds. He read the loyalist ceasefire statement in 1994 and was asked to read the UVF weapons decommissioning statement, at the age of 74, in 2007.
Eleven years ago he was forced out of his home on the Shankill Road by Johnny Adair's gang during one of the many loyalist paramilitary feuds.
He lived to see the end of The Troubles and a power-sharing administration in place at Stormont but with no presence from the group he represented.
Two Ulster Unionist Assembly members, Michael McGimpsey and Mike Neabitt, were among the mourners at the funeral.
Others who attended included Jeanette Irvine, the widow of the former PUP Assembly member, David Ervine, Dawn Purvis, the former PUP Assembly member who resigned from the party over the UVF's activities and the former Assembly member and former Human Rights Commissioner, Monica Mc Williams.
During the service, mourners were told there is a campaign to have overturned the conviction for which Gusty Spence served a jail sentence, the killing of 18-year-old Belfast Catholic Peter Ward in 1966.
