The question of which elements of someone's past should outweigh others has featured strongly in the weekend assessments of the veteran loyalist GustySpence.
If GustySpence had not counselled loyalists to follow suit when the IRA announced its ceasefire in 1994 then the course of political history might have run in a very different direction.
There's no doubt - despite questions about his conviction for the murder of Catholic barman Peter Ward - that GustySpence was a founder member of the loyalist UVF back in the 1960s.