The senior UDA member killed in the loyalist feud was given a full paramilitary funeral on the Shankill Road in Belfast yesterday. Mr Jackie Coulter's coffin was draped in UDA flags and accompanied by men wearing paramilitary insignia.
However, the UDA show of strength that Shankill commander Johnny Adair was reportedly organising before his arrest did not take place. Around 1,000 people attended the funeral.
There was a heavy British army and RUC presence as mourners gathered outside Mr Coulter's home in St Mary's Court. A military helicopter hovered overhead. Police officers and soldiers lined side streets but kept their distance. No attempt was made to remove the paramilitary trappings from the funeral.
The RUC Assistant Chief Constable in Belfast, Mr Bill Stewart, monitored proceedings. Many of the mourners wore bullet-proof vests. They included leading UDA members and Loyalist Volunteer Force activists from Portadown, Co Armagh.
Also present was Mr John White, chairman of the Ulster Democratic Party, the UDA's political wing, and the UDP deputy mayor of Belfast, Mr Frank McCoubrey. Mr Coulter, a close associate of Adair's, was shot dead on Monday as he sat in a car on the Crumlin Road in north Belfast with his friend, Mr Bobby Mahood. No paramilitary group claimed responsibility but the UVF's political wing, the Progressive Unionist Party, admitted the UVF was responsible.
A private 20-minute religious service was held inside Mr Coulter's home. It was conducted by Pastor Tom Gamble of Belfast City Mission and relayed by loudspeaker to the crowd outside.
During the service, a wreath from the LVF was delivered by a group of men. Marshals with black arm-bands and walkie-talkies controlled the crowd and kept camera crews well back from the house.
Before the funeral service loudspeakers in the garden of the Coulter house blasted out pop songs. Celine Dion's Power of Love was followed by Take That's A Million Love Songs and Percy Sledge's When a Man Loves a Woman.
After the service, Up Where We Belong by Joe Cocker and Jennifer Warne was played. As the coffin left the house it was flanked by a paramilitary colour party. A lone bugler played The Last Post.
Youths, wearing black ties and white shirts with UDA insignia, placed a UDA flag on the coffin. The cortege was led by men carrying red, white and blue wreaths which spelt out "UDA" and "UFF".
Mr Coulter's wife, Agnes, his daughters, Tracey, Natalie and Amy, and his son, Jackie, walked behind the coffin. The women carried red roses. The cortege stopped briefly at the spot on the Crumlin Road where Mr Coulter and Mr Mahood were shot by a UVF gunman. Mrs Coulter kissed the coffin at this point.
A tree at the murder scene was bedecked with flowers. When the cortege turned into Northumberland Street, the coffin was put into a hearse behind a flatbed lorry which carried hundreds more wreaths.
The funeral procession then drove down the Shankill Road and across the city to Roselawn Cemetery where Mr Coulter was buried.