Gerard McLaverty: MOST PEOPLE would be satisfied to be remembered for generosity of spirit.
Gerard McLaverty, who has died aged 50 after a fall at his home in Crumlin, Co Antrim, will always be honoured in Northern Ireland for his bravery in identifying the loyalist killers who left him for dead at the height of the Troubles.
For the remainder of his life he seemed unafraid in places where he might be at risk. Before ill-health forced him out of work, he spent years in the recycling area of a rubbish dump, sometimes alone at night.
"He had a generous spirit," his lifelong friend Seán Murray said. "He just wanted to get on with his life, he never said look what they did to me."
But what happened to Gerry McLaverty was the stuff of nightmares. He was the only survivor of the UVF Shankill Butchers gang, given their name because one was a butcher by trade, and they used cleavers and axes as well as boning knives to kill and torture.
Their crimes included sectarian killings, many loyalist feud deaths, shootings and bombings, but they became notorious for the murder between November 1975 and March 1977 of seven Catholic men picked up in the hours of darkness close to the city centre or in north Belfast. One stretch of road became known as Murder Mile.
The mid-1970s saw security forces stretched by high levels of both republican and loyalist violence, with RUC officers under IRA attack off-duty and at home. But as panic grew in north Belfast Catholics accused police of turning a blind eye.
McLaverty, then 19, was the last victim of the gang. He was walking to his digs when three men got out of a car. They said they were CID from Tennant Street, the Shankill Road police station. But he thought something was wrong and ran.
A few years ago he pointed out a church and cemetery to Murray as they did an errand. "On his way to work he'd noticed an open grave. He thought he could get into it and hide. But he couldn't get over the wall."
He was taken to a disused doctors' surgery off the Shankill, where a group of men kicked, battered and tried to strangle him with bootlaces. They stopped and made tea, then slashed his arms and wrists. Believing him dead, they dumped him in the alleyway behind the building, where a nurse living nearby heard him groaning in the morning.
Recovering in hospital, McLaverty told police he could identify some of the gang. Soon after he was released, detectives put him in an unmarked car and drove along the Shankill.
Outside a pub well-known as a UVF meeting place he recognised Sam McAllister, who subsequently stood trial for his attempted murder, and another man. After the two were questioned, police arrested another nine.
The 11 stood trial in 1979 for 19 murders committed over two years. The judge said two should be released only if terminally ill, since they had "murdered in a manner so cruel and ruthless as to be beyond the comprehension of any normal person".
They were released after serving 17 and 18 years: one was shot dead a year later in a revenge attack by the son of a loyalist the gang had murdered.
Gerard McLaverty was kept in Tennant Street overnight as the case began, then in a flat with 24- hour police protection. Later he was taken into a witness protection scheme, probably the first, and was moved to England for safety. But he returned not long afterwards to Antrim, close to the family of Seán Murray, born on the next farm, and his own family.
Ex-detective chief inspector Jimmy Nesbitt, who led the arrest operation, called him "an incredibly brave man. Gerry was a harmless soul, a terrific lad, a victim of the circumstances of the time".
Gerard is survived by his mother, six sisters and five brothers.
Gerard McLaverty: born 1958; died March 10th, 2008