LVF members who continued violent activity were said to do so " for personal gain " and only associated with the organisation at large when it was helpful to do so.

The LVF said: " This attack and future attacks lay squarely at the feet of republicans.

" When the Assets Recovery Agency won a High Court order to seize luxury homes belonging to ex-policeman Colin Robert Armstrong and his partner Geraldine Mallon in 2005, Alan McQuillan said " We have further alleged Armstrong has had links with the UVF and then the LVF following the split between those organisations.

The Pastor, a former associate of William McGrath, John McKeague and George Seawright and a long established British intelligence agent, is said by the authors to provide his own form of fundamentalist, Anti-Catholic Protestantism to the two groups fluid membership of young men, most of whom are also UDA or LVF members.

The RUC Chief Constable said he believed that it was carried-out by members of the LVF, which was then on ceasefire.

The Loyalist Volunteer Force ( LVF ) leader Billy Wright was shot dead in December 1997 by two Irish National Liberation Army ( INLA ) prisoners.

Billy Wright was the founder and leader of the Loyalist Volunteer Force ( LVF ).

He was shot as he travelled in a prison van ( alongside another LVF prisoner, Norman Green and one prison officer ) from one part of the prison to another.

The LVF have killed 18 people: 13 of whom were civilians, 1 was a former Provisional IRA member, and 3 were UVF volunteers.

He personally devised its codename of " Covenant " which was used to claim LVF attacks.

He was shot as he travelled in a prison van ( alongside another LVF prisoner and two guards ) from one part of the prison to another.

In 2002, Wright's successor as LVF leader, Mark Fulton, was found hanged in Maghaberry prison.

In response, on 30 October that year, the LVF stated that it was standing-down.

* 20 January: The LVF was blamed for exploding a bomb under a van owned by a Catholic in Larne.

* 14 May: The LVF was blamed for trying to kill a Catholic taxi driver in Millford.

* 2 July: The LVF threatened to kill Catholic civilians if the Drumcree parade planned for 6 July was not allowed to proceed along the nationalist Garvaghy Road.

* 15 July: The LVF was blamed for shooting dead Catholic civilian Bernadette Martin ( 18 ) in Aghalee.

* 24 July: The LVF was blamed for kidnapping Catholic civilian James Morgan ( 16 ) in Newcastle, County Down.

* 14 August: The LVF was blamed for attacks on four homes belonging to current and former prison officers in Mid Ulster.

* 5 December: The LVF was blamed for shooting dead Catholic civilian Gerry Devlin ( 36 ) as he entered a GAA club in Glengormley.

* 27 January: The LVF was blamed for trying to kill a Catholic taxi driver in North Belfast.

* 3 March: The LVF was blamed for shooting dead a Catholic and Protestant civilian – Damian Trainor and Philip Allen – in the Railway Bar, Poyntzpass.

* 5 March: The LVF was blamed for a gun attack on a house in a mainly-Protestant area of Antrim.

* 25 April: The LVF was blamed for shooting dead Catholic civilian Ciaran Heffron ( 22 ) in Crumlin.

* 2 July: The LVF was blamed for setting fire to ten Catholic churches in Northern Ireland.

The LVF was also blamed for petrol bombing the homes of two Catholics in Derry.

* 15 July: A package addressed to a Dublin hotel, which was believed to have been sent by the LVF, exploded while it was being examined at the Garda Technical Bureau in Dublin.

The LVF members swore revenge and on 10 January 2000 they took it by shooting Jameson dead on the outskirts of Portadown.

There he demanded a separate wing for the LVF prisoners.

In March 1998, during the negotiations for the Good Friday Agreement, the LVF issued a statement expressing support for the stance of the anti-agreement Democratic Unionist Party, saying the party's leader, Ian Paisley, had got it " absolutely right ".

The Northern Ireland Office accepted its ceasefire in November, making LVF prisoners eligible for the early release scheme under the Good Friday Agreement.

* 24 May: The LVF claimed responsibility for planting a bomb in Dundalk, Republic of Ireland.

* 5 August: The LVF claimed responsibility for trying to kill a Catholic taxi driver in Lurgan.

* 17 November: The LVF claimed responsibility for planting four small bombs in Dundalk.

* 27 December: The LVF claimed responsibility for a gun attack on the dance hall of the Catholic-owned Glengannon Hotel near Dungannon.

* 31 December: The LVF claimed responsibility for a gun attack on the Clifton Tavern on Cliftonville Road, Belfast.

* 10 January: The LVF claimed responsibility for shooting dead Catholic civilian Terry Enright ( 28 ) outside a nightclub on Talbot Street, Belfast.

* 19 January: The LVF claimed responsibility for shooting dead Catholic taxi driver Larry Brennan ( 52 ) as he sat in his car on Ormeau Road, Belfast.

* 24 January: The LVF claimed responsibility for shooting dead Catholic taxi driver John McColgan ( 33 ) in Belfast.

* 25 January: The LVF claimed responsibility for shooting and wounding a Catholic civilian in Lurgan.

* 27 January: The Northern Ireland Council for Voluntary Action ( NICVA ) announced that the LVF had issued death threats against a number of Catholic cross-community workers in the Mid Ulster area.

* 23 February: The LVF claimed responsibility for planting a small car bomb outside a Garda station in Dromad, County Louth, Republic of Ireland.