The funeral will to take place tomorrow of former Ulster Volunteer Force leader Gusty Spence, who died on Saturday aged 78.
Arrangements were being made last night to hold a funeral service for Mr Spence at noon tomorrow at St Michael’s Church on Craven Street, off the loyalist Shankill Road. There will be no UVF trappings to the funeral in keeping with his wishes. Instead, it is expected that his coffin will be draped with the regimental flag of the British army’s Royal Ulster Rifles, with which he served. Mr Spence made the transition from being a proponent of loyalist paramilitary force to becoming a key advocate of the peace process. While he was imprisoned for 18 years for the 1966 murder of a Catholic, he subsequently, with figures such as David Ervine, pressed for loyalists to cease their violence.