John George's death was so gruesome it could have been a scene from a Quentin Tarantino movie: first he was stabbed in the legs so he couldn't run away then repeatedly beaten before finally being shot in the face and chest.
His broken, lifeless body was then dumped in an isolated Spanish lemon grove where, even though it was December, the sun was still warm enough that when the father-of-two's body was finally discovered in early January, it was so decomposed that his devastated family were unable to have an open casket at his funeral back home in Northern Ireland.
George's murder came just a few days after he left his Belfast home and flew to the Costa Blanca, a magnet for many British and Irish tourists thanks to its home from home atmosphere of pubs, fish and chip shops and curry restaurants.
Watering holes such as The Randy Leprechaun, Paddy's Point and Murphy's Sports Tavern serving Guinness and other Irish beers, provide a reassuring link with the old country back home.
But apart from the tourists, the area is increasingly being targeted by organised crime gangs, many of them from Ireland, both north and south.
