Uploaded April 2025 | Updated September 2026, 1 hour ago
Robert William Bates (12th December 1948 – 11th June 1997) was a Northern Irish loyalist. He was a member of the Ulster Volunteer Force and the infamous Shankill Butchers gang, led by Lenny Murphy.
In October 1996, 18 months prior to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, Bates was cleared for early release by the Life Sentence Review Board. He was given the opportunity of participating in a rehabilitation scheme, spending the day on a work placement and returning to prison at night.As he arrived for work in his native Shankill area of Belfast early on the morning of 11 June 1997,Bates was shot dead by the son of a UDA man named James Curtis Moorehead, who Bates had killed in 1977.The killer who was a leading loyalist named Curtis Moorehead, identified himself to Bates as the son of his victim before opening fire.The Sutton Index of Deaths attributes his assassination to a feud between the UVF and the UDA.Bates had been working at the Ex-Prisoners Interpretative Centre (EPIC), a drop-in centre for former loyalist prisoners.
Bates's killing had not been sanctioned by the UDA leadership but nevertheless they refused to agree to UVF demands that the killer should be handed over to them, instead exiling him from the Shankill. He was rehoused in the Taughmonagh area where he quickly became an important figure in the local UDA as a part of Jackie McDonald's South Belfast Brigade.
Robert William Bates (12th December 1948 – 11th June 1997) was a Northern Irish loyalist. He was a member of the Ulster Volunteer Force and the infamous Shankill Butchers gang, led by Lenny Murphy.
In October 1996, 18 months prior to the signing of the Good Friday Agreement, Bates was cleared for early release by the Life Sentence Review Board. He was given the opportunity of participating in a rehabilitation scheme, spending the day on a work placement and returning to prison at night.As he arrived for work in his native Shankill area of Belfast early on the morning of 11 June 1997,Bates was shot dead by the son of a UDA man named James Curtis Moorehead, who Bates had killed in 1977.The killer who was a leading loyalist named Curtis Moorehead, identified himself to Bates as the son of his victim before opening fire.The Sutton Index of Deaths attributes his assassination to a feud between the UVF and the UDA.Bates had been working at the Ex-Prisoners Interpretative Centre (EPIC), a drop-in centre for former loyalist prisoners.
Bates's killing had not been sanctioned by the UDA leadership but nevertheless they refused to agree to UVF demands that the killer should be handed over to them, instead exiling him from the Shankill. He was rehoused in the Taughmonagh area where he quickly became an important figure in the local UDA as a part of Jackie McDonald's South Belfast Brigade.
