We reveal how a Shankill loyalist who directed that organisation's murder campaign was paid for information.

But even though the UVF carried out numerous killings and a catalogue of other serious crimes, this highest ranking agent supplied information that was "mainly political".

The revelation comes hard on the heels of our exposé earlier this month that one of the UDA's so-called 'brigadiers' is a long-serving spy for the security services (inset, right).

Sunday Life also reveals how the Special Branch used its influence inside the UVF to have one of its most senior and best known leaders expelled.

These latest spy revelations come as the Eames-Bradley Consultative Group on the Past prepares to end its public consultation and begin a process of private contacts.

It is known they hope to talk to the paramilitary leaderships - including the IRA, the UVF and the UDA.

But how that is done, and whether it can be achieved, are matters that have yet to be fully discussed.

When it was put to one source that the group could end up talking to paramilitary leaders who doubled as agents, he replied: "Exactly, exactly, I quite agree with you."

Asked what would be achieved in any such contacts, he responded: "A lot depends on them."

The nationalist politician Alex Attwood, who was part of an SDLP delegation that met Eames-Bradley last Monday, suggested the group "have a much bigger page to write on than many people thought".

"Their minds are opening up all the time," he said.

"If Eames-Bradley are to have authority in what they report, they must go into all the dark places of the last 40 years, including agents of strategic influence in republican and loyalist paramilitaries," Mr Attwood said.

"The State won't give up the names of their agents. So, when Eames-Bradley talk to people, particularly leadership people, it will be very hard to know if they are talking to an agent or not," he continued.