Robert Seymour

Robert Seymour (c. 1955 – 15 June 1988) was a Northern Irish loyalist and a leading member of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). He served as the paramilitary organisation's East Belfast commander before being shot dead by the Provisional IRA in an alley behind his video shop in Woodstock Road, east Belfast. His killing was in retaliation for the UVF bombing of a nationalist pub in which three Catholics died. In 1983, Seymour was convicted and sentenced to life imprisonment for the 1981 murder of leading IRA member James "Skipper" Burns. Seymour cycled to Burns' home in Rodney Parade, off the Donegall Road, and shot him to death as he lay sleeping beside his girlfriend. Seymour's conviction was overturned in the Appeal Court after the judge found the testimony of supergrass Joe Bennett "unbelievable". Until 2011, Seymour's image featured on a large mural painted on a gable in Ballymacarrett Road, east Belfast. Ulster Volunteer Force