COMRADES, friends and loved ones gathered at a memorial service for a former soldier and undercover journalist from the region.

Stephen Paul Ibinson, from Newton Aycliffe, County Durham, died in April, in Kabul, Afghanistan, as he tried to infiltrate an opium ring.

Known to many as simply “Undercover Steve” or “Ibbo”, little was known of his work before he suffered a massive heart attack.

Since then, it has emerged that he infiltrated and uncovered a dog-fighting ring, exposed rapists, and tracked down murderers and terrorists.

In doing so, the 33-year-old former paratrooper earned himself a reputation as one of the UK’s top undercover reporters.

Speaking at his memorial service at St Clare’s, in Newton Aycliffe, on Saturday, the Reverend Linda Potter, said: “Stephen’s life may have been relatively short, but it is a life that has been lived full on.

“It’s a life in which he has given and received love in full measure, he didn’t know the meaning of the word half measure, he only knew how to give his all for those he cared about.”

The married father-of-three settled in Belfast and left the Parachute Regiment at 27 to set up his own private investigation firm.

He is one of four children to former Great Aycliffe town councillors Sandra and Stephen Ibinson.

Ms Potter said: “Stephen was a person who cared about the world he lived in and the society he moved amongst.

“He had particular cares, and one of them was animal welfare and rescue.

“This led him to his undercover work in which he was instrumental in breaking up a dog-fighting ring, known as the Farmers’ Boys.

“Working undercover for Panorama, his satisfaction was that he had done something to stop the evil of this cruelty.

“A Bafta award was given for the programme and Stephen knew that although he could not be named, he had made the world a better place for his actions. That was reward enough.

“Undercover work also included being in Iraq and Afghanistan where again he was involved in trying to put an end to some of the evil in the world including drugsmuggling rings that destroy lives and families.

“It was a costly caring, for it meant being away from his family, but in putting something good into the society he was trying to make a better world, one that his children would grow up in.”