LESS than £600 has been raised in an online appeal to help pay for the funeral of IRA supergrass Raymond Gilmour.
Fellow agent Martin McGartland launched the appeal via the Just Giving website last week with a target of £5,000.
Mr McGartland, who opened the account with £1,000, said he wanted to make sure the Derry man was not given a pauper’s funeral.
The badly-decomposed body of the 55-year-old was found in a flat in Kent in south-east England last month by his 18-year-old son from his second marriage.
It is understood he may have lain undiscovered for around a week.
Recruited as an informer at the age of 16, Gilmour worked for the security forces within the INLA and Provisional IRA.
He was the sole witness in a case against 35 Derry men and women accused of paramilitary offences which collapsed in 1984.
The agent then lived under an assumed identity in England for more than 30 years, where it is understood he suffered from alcohol and mental health issues.
It is not known when or where his funeral will take place, nor whether he will be buried under his own name or his new assumed identity.
Describing Mr Gilmour as a “former British agent who had been abandoned”, Mr McGartland wrote: “We do not know what the cost of a proper burial, funeral would be but it would be fitting if we could raise enough to be able to give Ray a proper funeral and pay for a headstone.”
There have been around 20 donations made over the past week, including from one person who wrote: “I’m from the Londonderry area and respect what Ray did in saving lives of people here. A great disservice was done to him over the years.”
Mr Gilmour death is being investigated by the North East Kent coroner’s office, although it is understood it is not being treated as suspicious.
Last week independent Derry councillor Gary Donnelly wrote on Facebook: “Those who say that the only regret they have about Gilmour’s death is the manner in which it happened, I disagree. I think it was a fitting end, at least Judas took his own.”
