'UVF show of strength': Who was Robert 'Squeak' Seymour - AKA 'Bobby Blood' - the top loyalist being celebrated in Belfast?

A memorial service was held for him in Roselawn on Saturday.

Additionally, images circulating online show a huge turnout of people dressed in white and black lining east Belfast that day, in scenes which recall the 2020 Bobby Storey funeral – something which some are dubbing a loyalist ‘show of strength’.

The charity ACT posted the following message online on Facebook: “This morning loyalist veterans from the 70s, 80s and 90s gathered for the traditional tribute at the graveside of Vol Robert ‘Squeak’ Seymour.

“The service was lead by veteran East Belfast loyalists who had served lengthy prison sentences for their devotion to Ulster and defending our community. These men had been there when it mattered.

“It was great to see such a huge turnout for this dignified event, and afterwards close comrades and loyalists who provided leadership to East Belfast during the darkest days of the conflict were recognised for their contribution and leadership with a presentation.

“We pay tribute to all East Belfast volunteers who sacrificed during the conflict and wish all bands taking part in the later parade well as loyalism remembers our fallen heroes.”

• SO WHO WAS HE?

‘Squeak’ was a senior UVF man.

One report in the LA Times (credited to 'Times Wire Services') described Seymour as having been the UVF's "east Belfast commander" and "number three" in the organisation's hierarchy.

The LA Times said that one of Seymour's nicknames was "Bobby Blood".

By the time of Seymour's murder by the IRA in 1988 his own organisation, the UVF, had murdered at least 317 people, and probably many more.

Seymour had been jailed for the 1981 shooting of senior IRA figure James "Skipper" Burns (33, three children) and for firearms offences, but was released a few years later.

The man he killed, Burns, was believed by police to have been the quartermaster of the IRA's Northern Command.

Two weeks before Burns' death, he had been given a two-year suspended sentence for fatally hitting his wife: something which was initially treated as murder, but later commuted to manslaughter.

In the 2016 book UVF: The Endgame (by ex-News Letter political reporter Henry McDonald and ‎Jim Cusack), the authors say that Seymour had cycled from east Belfast to the Falls late at night, and broke in and hid in Burns' house.

When Burns came home and went to sleep, Seymour shot him in bed with a silencer.

Seymour was given four life sentences for killing Burns.

But this was based on the testimony of Joe Bennett – himself a UVF killer who had been part of a gang that stabbed Catholic post office worker Maureen McCann (64) to death in a 1982 robbery.

Bennett got immunity in return for helping send Seymour to prison for the Burns murder – but Bennett's testimony was later ruled unreliable, leading to Seymour's release.

More on the UVF from this reporter here:

• 'Loyalists plotted to poison Dunnes Stores food unless it coughed up £500k to UVF'

• ‘If we knew in 1994 what we know today about the Good Friday Agreement we would never have had UVF ceasefire’

• Dublin-Monaghan bloodbath 50 years on: What led up to UVF slaughter and how did events unfold?