Raymond McCord

Raymond Irvine McCord (born 23 December 1953 ) is a victims rights campaigner from Northern Ireland.

Raymond junior, the oldest of McCord's three sons, was born on 24 November 1974.

He joined the Royal Air Force (RAF) in his teens, serving as a radar operator.

He left the RAF after four years and returned home to Northern Ireland, where he joined the UVF.

McCord senior believed this was to offer his family protection from the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) due to the McCord family's previous trouble with the UDA.

McCord junior was attached to the Mount Vernon unit of the UVF and was under the command of Mark Haddock.

Mostly involved in drug running operations, McCord junior was caught with a haul of cannabis and arrested.

Fearing a rebuke from the UVF Brigade Staff (Belfast leadership) from McCord junior informing the police and the UVF leadership about Haddock's involvement in the drug trade, Haddock allegedly decided to have McCord junior killed.

In 1992 as a result of a dispute with the loyalist paramilitary group the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) he received a vicious beating from six UDA members in Rathcoole.

He left Northern Ireland some time after to go to the US, returning in 1995.

Upon his return he attempted to address the intimidation of his wife Vivienne and their three children: Raymond, Gareth and Glenn, by the UDA.

According to McCord his two youngest sons, who lived with their mother in Rathfern whilst Raymond Jnr.

lived with him, were frequent victims of gang attacks from local UDA members.

McCord's dispute with the UDA was linked to an incident with prominent UDA member John Gregg.

McCord became involved in the issue of victims rights after his son, Raymond McCord Jr., was killed by the loyalist paramilitary group the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) in 1997.

He is an outspoken critic of the UVF.

McCord, an Ulster Protestant, was born in the unionist York Road area of North Belfast.

His family lived at 17 Grove Street until he was two when they moved to a new house in the recently built Rathcoole estate in Newtownabbey.

As a youth McCord was educated first at Whitehouse Primary School and subsequently at Belfast High School.

During his teenage years he played in an association football team Star of the Sea alongside future Provisional IRA member and hunger striker Bobby Sands.

Although the club was nominally Catholic it also had many Protestant youths.

Two of McCord's other teammates, Terry Nicholl and Michael Acheson, would both later join the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) and serve time in prison for offences related to their membership.

Most of the Protestant players left after the outbreak of the Troubles, although McCord remained and played for the senior side in the Northern Amateur Football League, alongside Marty Quinn.

As a 17-year-old he had trials with Manchester United F.C., a club he continues to support, and Blackpool F.C., but was not offered terms by either club and did not pursue a career in football.

McCord had worked as a welder at Harland & Wolff and as a bouncer.

On 9 November 1997 the latter was believed to have been lured from home and taken to a disused quarry in Ballyduff, Newtownabbey where he was beaten to death with concrete blocks.

He was 22 at the time of his death.

He was buried in Carnmoney Cemetery in Newtownabbey on 14 November 1997.

McCord senior initially believed his son had been killed by the UDA as part of the bad blood between that organisation and his family but later had it confirmed by several sources that the UVF had been behind the killing.

The UDA South East Antrim Brigade issued a statement acknowledging the history it had with McCord but denied any involvement in his son's death.

Angered by the lack of interest by mainstream Unionism and the police investigation McCord carried out his own investigation.

Promising to his family to act within the law he used his contacts with loyalism to uncover that Mark Haddock was a police informer.

McCord claims he met with UVF Chief of Staff John "Bunter" Graham and other leading members of the organisation in the Maze prison, where they were waiting to visit an inmate, soon after his son's killing and that they agreed to conduct the internal investigation that uncovered the information about Haddock.

However he further claimed that the inquiry did not target Haddock as some of those involved in it were themselves police informers.

McCord discovered that Haddock's status as an informer meant he wasn't questioned or linked to the killing of his son.

Telling anyone who would listen to his claims McCord make a decisive breakthrough in 2002 when he met Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan.

O'Loan had established that a leading loyalist who was also a police informer had been involved in the killing and in 2005 it was announced in the Dáil by Irish Labour Party leader Pat Rabbitte using parliamentary privilege that the loyalist in question was Mark Haddock.

O'Loan conducted an investigation and the results were published in 2007.

The investigation was named Operation Ballast, and focused on alleged collusion between the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and the UVF.

The report stated the police colluded with loyalists in over a dozen murders in North Belfast.