Belfast, May 1996.

A 17 year-old boy is bundled into a car by four masked men.

A sock is shoved inside his mouth to dull his screams. He is beaten before being driven at speed to an alleyway in the nearby republican heartland of Ballymurphy. He is removed from the car; his arms and legs are bound with tape and rope. His attackers hang him upside down on a wooden fence. It was like being crucified.

What happens next is what's known as a 'punishment' beating. Attacks regularly carried out in Northern Ireland by paramilitaries, supposedly, to keep their communities in order.

That teenager survived, though he was unable to walk for many months. Today, he is a father in his mid 40s who almost three decades after the attack, has received vindication. Paul Reid was handed an apology from the IRA for the brutal and cold attack he received as a teenager.

Born into a staunch republican family, Paul's father Patsy was a renowned IRA man who was jailed for the attempted murder of two judges. His uncle, Billy Reid, is described in the press as 'republican royalty' after becoming the first IRA man to have shot dead a British soldier.

His story is as far away from violence as it gets, it's about forgiveness. not only forgiving those who harmed him, but forgiving himself and asking forgiveness from God.

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What is ‘collusion?” The dictionary quotes it as: a secret or illegal cooperation or conspiracy in order to deceive others.”

In Northern Ireland, far too many know its devastating reality.

On November 9, 1997, 22 year-old Raymond McCord Jnr was lured to the grounds of a disused quarry on the outskirts of Belfast. There, members of the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) brutally beat him to death. His injuries were so severe, he could be only identified through his fingerprints.

His murder sparked one of the most damning public inquiries into the workings of the UVF, and the paramilitary gang’s close workings with the RUC.

Operation Ballast, headed by then police ombudsman Nuala O’Loan, revealed how paramilitary killers were protected from prosecution because they were police agents.

The 2007 report also exposed UVF commander Mark Haddock as a high ranking police informant who carried out several murders, beatings and gun attacks whilst being on the pay roll of the security forces. It was estimated he’d been paid more £80,000 for information whilst his unit conducted a reign of terror in north Belfast and mid ulster. It was on Haddock’s orders that Raymond McCord Jnr was murdered.

Today, his father speaks to No Edit about the son he lost and his family’s battle to finally get justice for his killing.

Campaigner Raymond McCord Snr also reveals his own battles with paramilitaries and how a UVF threat on his life remains active to this very day.

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In the mid 1990s, Donal Gray was a rising star on the football scene.

Gaining caps for the Northern Ireland youth squad, he played in the Irish League before his talent saw him signed in Scotland where he had the chance to play against his heroes.

But his dream of playing professional football was cruelly taken away when, in 1996, the then 19 year-old was subjected to a brutal paramilitary assault in the front garden of his Co Down home.

Up to 10 masked men attacked the teenager with cudgels, pickaxes and iron bars. His legs were so severely broken, doctors said he would never play football again.

The so-called punishment beating was carried out by members of the Provisional IRA. The press reported at the time how the rising football star was the 400th victim of the republican paramilitary group's brutal assaults.

In this episode, Donal talks about the attack, and the long, hard road to both physical and mental recovery.

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