By David Burke.

[Volumes 1-3 of this ebook can be found by clicking on the top section of this page (purple lettering) which will return you to the home page.]

167. The Cabinet Office knew the report into the sex abuse at Kincora Boys’ Home by Sir George Terry contained a lie.

While David Calcutt QC was conducting his inquiry, the BBC was uncovering unpleasant secrets about the child sex abuse at Kincora. The Cabinet Office became concerned.

The revelations were made by Peter Taylor on a ‘Public Eye’ documentary about Kincora and MI5. It was broadcast by the BBC on 1 June 1990.

David Gowan of the Cabinet Office became involved in monitoring the documentary in conjunction with the NIO, MI5 and the MoD.

A ‘SECRET’ letter written by Gowan to Stephen Rickard of MI5 reveals that the Cabinet Office was aware that Ian Cameron of MI5 had not co-operated with the RUC and the Terry Inquiry when they had probed the scandal. (The letter is reproduced in full below.)

Cameron was an employee of MI5, a part of the Home Office. However, he was being concealed inside the MoD at this time to disguise his role as an MI5 officer.

MI5 had refused to let anyone talk to Cameron while he was masquerading as an official of the MoD.

Yet, Terry had stated in his report that the MoD had co-operated with him.

The officials of the Cabinet Office who were dealing with Kincora must have read the Terry Report.

Gowan’s letter to Rickard establishes that the Cabinet Office knew the truth, i.e , that Mi5 and the MoD had denied the police access to Cameron.

The Cabinet Office did nothing to rectify the lie contained in Terry’s report.

Terry was not asked why he had lied by anyone in Whitehall.

Why?

168. Was MI5 spying on the BBC?

Gowan’s letter was marked ‘SECRET’. It was circulated to a group that included Brian Blackwell of MI5 who was stationed at the NIO.

It also went to MI5’s legal adviser, Bernard Sheldon.

According to Gowan, there had been an ‘unexpected problem’ with the BBC’s broadcast: it had described failure of ‘the RUC in 1982 to take evidence from Mr Cameron’.

Why was this ‘unexpected’?

Did MI5 have eyes and ears inside the BBC who had failed to report this to their handlers?

Was MI5 tapping Taylor’s phone?

169. The Cabinet Office failed to dispute a lie by the RUC.

According to Gowan’s letter, the RUC had asserted that it did not believe Ian Cameron had any useful knowledge. This was not true.

So, why did the RUC say as much?

The Cabinet Office also knew this was a lie.

Cameron was a key figure in the Kincora scandal.

Cameron had been told by Capt. Brian Gemmell that William McGrath was abusing boys in Belfast. Gemmell had been ordered by Cameron not to pursue the matter.

The Cabinet Office knew about this incident, not the least because the BBC broadcast had described the event.

Significantly, the BBC had not named Gemmell during the Public Eye broadcast. Yet, the Cabinet Office did not question the veracity of what the anonymous guest – Gemmell – was saying.

The only conclusion to draw is that MI5 and the Cabinet Office not only knew the contributor was Gemmell but that what he was saying was true.

170. The Cabinet Office felt it was ‘fortunate’ that the press was not following up the BBC’s evidence about State collusion in child rape.

Public Eye had secured an interview with Gemmell. He told them that MI5 had developed an interest in using sexual blackmail to recruit John McKeague of the Red Hand Commando as an ‘informant’.

McKeague was a notorious terrorist. He had been interned in 1973. The NIO was aware of his sexual proclivities. Declassified records show that NIO officials made ‘ribald’ jokes about his sexuality at a meeting with UDA leaders. [See Urwin, A State in Denial.]

During the Public Eye broadcast, Peter Taylor speculated that MI5 had been aware of what was going on at Kincora but had exploited it for intelligence purposes.

Gowan stated that it was ‘fortunate that the press have not so far shown much interest in the BBC programme’.

If Peter Taylor’s speculation was wide of the mark, how could it have been ‘fortunate’ that the media was not following the story?

Why would it bother the Cabinet Office if the media investigated something that would turn out to be untrue?

171. The ‘SECRET’ Gowan letter in full.

The recipients of the ‘SECRET’ Cabinet Office letter included: Miss J Wheldon, Law Officers’ Department; Bernard Sheldon, MI5’s legal adviser; P. Cassell Esq, HD GS Sec, of the MoD; and D Auckland, F6, Home Office, and Miss S Phippard, Cabinet Office.

It is marked as having been read by Brian Blackwell of MI5.

Gowan’s letter reads as follows

KINCORA BBC “PUBLIC EYE” PROGRAMME OF 1 JUNE

1. Thank you for sending me a copy of your submission of 1 June to Mr Blackwall.

2. The programme was very much as expected. The one unexpected problem (which we discussed earlier today), is that after describing the steps taken by the RUC in 1982 to take evidence from Mr Cameron (who was not named by the BBC), the presenter said that the Northern Ireland Office had made the following statements during the previous week:

a. The RUC did approach the Security Service in 1982 with a request that the senior officer would give evidence. The RUC did not however regard the Security Service officer as being central to their investigation. In fact he had no information which would have been relevant to the inquiry into Kincora.

b. There were no operations or source protection reasons which would have prevented the senior officer from giving evidence to the police.

c. There was, however, a general principle at stake: the risk that such an interview might have led the officer to reveal information about the structure, organisation and modus operandi of the intelligence services.

3. You told me at the weekend that the Northern Ireland office did in fact make these points on a strictly unattributable basis to the presenter of the programme, Mr Taylor. You said that the line was cleared with the Security Service.

4. The programme concluded by alleging that the Security Service had not been prepared to cooperate with the McGonagle, Terry and Hughes Inquiries. The presenter asked whether it might have been the case that the Security Service had been aware in the mid-70s of what was taking place at Kincora, but had not wished to intervene because their knowledge of homosexual activity by McGrath and others was useful to them for intelligence purposes. Mr Taylor implied that this interpretation was borne out by interest which (according to the former Army intelligence officer involved in the programme) the Security Service had shown in the 1970s in using the suspicion that the loyalist paramilitary, John McKeague, was homosexual as a means of putting pressure on him to become an informant.

5. It is fortunate that the press have not so far shown much interest in the BBC programme. It is, however, likely that Mr Tam Dalyell MP will pick up the statement which the BBC attributed to the Northern Ireland Office and try to build on this in future Parliamentary questions.

6. We imagine that you will now be working on a defensive line which can be used as a basis for answers to PQs and for use by News Department. We should be grateful if you could consult us about the draft.

172.  An honest man provides a glimpse at the truth despite the gags restricting what he could say.

David Calcutt QC recognised that the terms of reference handed to him by Defence Secretary Tom King MP were too restrictive and stretched them a little. He completed his report on 10 August 1990. It was short and is quoted in full below:

1. The Secretary of State for Defence has asked me to advise him ‘Whether an injustice was done to Mr Colin Wallace as a result of the manner in which his case was presented to the Civil Service Appeal Board when on 17 October 1975 it considered the decision of the Ministry of Defence to terminate his employment on disciplinary grounds; and, if so, to recommend whether compensation should be paid to him.

2. My terms of reference are precise, and, strictly construed, would require me to limit myself to a consideration of the manner in which Mr Wallace’s case was presented at the hearing which took place before the Civil Service Appeal Board (CSAB) on 17 October 1975 (and whether that resulted in an injustice). Having, however, considered the relevant material, I take the view that a slightly wider approach is called for, and that I should also take into account what took place shortly before and in anticipation of the hearing.

3. The Secretary of State has specifically asked me not to prepare a Report, but simply to express my conclusions. I nevertheless take the view that a bare expression of my conclusions, without more, would possibly be open to misinterpretation, and that some reason, however brief, is needed.

4. After wide reading and consultation, I have reached the clear conclusion that the hearing which took place before the Civil Service Appeal Board on 17 October 1975 was unsatisfactory in two material respects.

5. First, I am satisfied that shortly before the hearing took place representatives of the Ministry of Defence were in private communication with the chairman of the hearing with regard to Mr Wallace’s appeal. Such communications should not have happened; and I believe that what occurred probably affected the outcome of the appeal.

6.  Secondly, Mr Wallace’s work, as an information officer, was wide-ranging in its nature. I am satisfied that the full range of Mr Wallace’s work was not made plain to the CSAB. In my view that CSAB needed to know the full range of his work if it was to adjudicate justly on his appeal.

7. The Ministry of Defence had decided to terminate Mr Wallace’s employment. The CSAB recommended that if Mr Wallace wished to offer his resignation, the Department should accept this as an alternative to dismissal. In my view neither dismissal nor resignation (as an alternative to dismissal) was within the range of penalties which would have been reasonable for the isolated incident which gave rise to the disciplinary proceedings. In attempting to pass a restricted document to a journalist, at a time when and in the circumstances in which he did, Mr Wallace erred; but if this incident had been considered in the overall context of Mr Wallace’s work, neither dismissal nor resignation (as an alternative to dismissal) was a reasonable penalty. To this extent, I am of the opinion that an injustice was done to Mr Wallace; and I so advise.

8. In the circumstances I am asked to recommend whether compensation should be paid to Mr Wallace, and, by implication, the amount of such compensation. In my view compensation should be paid. Precise calculations are not possible; but I have had regard principally to the amount of compensation which Mr Wallace might have received had compensation been paid to him in about 1975, to the fall in the value of money since 1975, and to the difficulty which Mr Wallace has experienced in obtaining alternative employment. In my view an appropriate amount of compensation would be £30,000 and I recommend that such sum should now be paid to Mr Wallace.

173. Covering up the murder of a child.

While Calcutt was researching, considering and finalising his report, Labour’s Northern Ireland spokesman, Kevin McNamara MP, had been attempting to raise the Brian McDermott Murder Memo of November 1974 in the House of Commons. He placed a question about in the House in February 1990. This was the memo which Wallace had handwritten before sending it to be typed up at HQNI in November 1974.

It was the one which addressed the abuse of children at Kincora and the child murder of Brian McDermott in 1973.

The RUC always suspected that McDermott had been murdered by Alan Campbell. Campbell was part of the paedophile gang that swirled around Kincora. He was almost certainly an MI5 agent. Wallace had written about the gruesome McDermott murder in his November 1974 memo.

In 2021, the BBC suppressed a broadcast which cast more light on Campbell’s role in the murder. (This will be discussed in more detail in a later section.)

The Cabinet Office, MI5 and the RUC knew of Campbell’s involvement when McNamara placed his question. They agonised for months about how to deal with it.

George Caskey, the architect of the Kincora cover-up, was consulted. Caskey had already tried to discredit the 1974 memo. As noted in an earlier section, Wallace had kept a photocopy of the original handwritten version of the memo. It had been typed up in his solicitor’s office for ease of reading. Caskey had pretended in the early 1980s that he believed that the typed up was the original submitted by Wallace. He had then pretended that two typing machines had been used to complete it, thereby asserting that it was a forgery.

McNamara wanted the RUC to deposit their forensic report of the memo in the House of Commons. If, e.g., it showed that the RUC knew about the handwritten version, it would reveal Caskey’s sleight of hand.

Documentary proof has since emerged that the RUC knew full well that the memorandum had been handwritten. See the note sent by Det Inspector Cooke of the RUC below:

The RUC furnished the Hart Inquiry with a copy of the typed version from its archives.

S. Rickard of MI5 wrote to Caskey, Blackwell, and others on 8 February 1990, stating that the report should not be disclosed and seeking advice on what might happen if a Select Committee sought it.

Rickard kept in touch with Caskey about how to respond to McNamara’s question. See the memorandum Rickard sent to Caskey on 17 October 1990, below:

Rickard was one of the senior intelligence officers killed in the Chinook helicopter crash on the Mull of Kintyre on 2 June 1994. 

In the event, the analysis was not released to the House of Commons.

174.  What is so dangerous about Wallace’s secret job description?

There is another document which has never been released, Wallace’s secret job description.

In the wake of the Calcutt Inquiry, the MoD refused to let the Defence Select Committee see the four-page document job ‘justification’. In a letter dated 11 February 1991, the MoD stated that it contained ‘sensitive information relating to the security and intelligence matters’ and that the provision of such papers, even under the conditions relating to the Committee’s access to classified information, ‘would be inconsistent with the conventions’.

The four-page document has never been released. David Calcutt QC never got to see it.

No copy has ever reached any emanation of Parliament.

175.  Wallace reports Calcutt’s findings to the Metropolitan Police.

Wallace’s solicitor referred the findings of Calcutt’s investigation to the Metropolitan Police. They concluded that the way in which the MoD had handled the case provided prima facie evidence of a conspiracy to defraud.

Was this official report sufficient to prompt the institution of police enquiries?

The Metropolitan Police passed the buck to the DPP, Sir Allan Green QC, for a direction. Green was sent a file to consider on 21 September 1990, but did not reply until March 1991. Green’s conclusion was that ‘the evidence is not such as to justify the institution of police enquiries’.

Is there reason to suspect something untoward here? Unfortunately, there is.

A few months later, Green was caught kerb crawling, i.e., prowling around London in his car looking for prostitutes. There is no reason to believe that this was a habit he suddenly embarked upon for the first time in late 1991.

It must have occurred to Green that the police  – and therefore MI5  – knew about his nocturnal appetites.

A man like Green would have been foolish to take a gamble that MI5 was oblivious to his sleazy secrets. Green could not dare take a risk by crossing them over the Wallace case.

Irrespective, his luck ran out. He was halted by the police for kerb crawling in the King’s Cross district of London in October 1991 and furnished with a formal caution. He was forced to resign as DPP.

176. Savile, Smith and Morrison receive knighthoods. 

1990 was notable for another reason: Jimmy Savile OBE (since 1972) was awarded a knighthood in the Queen’s birthday honours list. This represented a personal triumph for Thatcher who had tried to have the honour bestowed on Savile on four earlier occasions.

She had ennobled the notorious child rapist Cyril Smith in 1988.

Peter Morrison – whom she knew full well was an abuser – received his knighthood in 1991. She had stepped down by then, but the honour was handed out to Morrison at her request. (For details about Morrison, see section 004.)

Chapter 13.

Wallace is vindicated.

177. Confirmation of the anti-Wilson plot emerged. An inquiry did not take place. Parliament was misled.

The Calcutt Inquiry came hot on the heels of revelations about the anti-Wilson plot, an issue Wallace had first raised in an interview in April 1980.

In a functioning democracy, a full judicial inquiry into a treacherous plot of this nature should have taken place. The findings of the Calcutt Inquiry should have added to the pressure for an inquiry. Instead, the Tories persisted in their policy of misleding Parliament and the public

The revelations made by Wallace about the anti-Wilson plot were confirmed by Peter Wright in his book ‘Spycatcher’ which had finally gone on sale. Wright justified his treachery on the delusion that Wilson was a communist.

Wright revealed at page 369 of Spycatcher that he and a number of other MI5 officers plotted to discredit and topple Wilson in 1974:

The plan was simple. In the run up to the election … MI5 would arrange for selective details of the intelligence about leading Labour Party figures, but especially Wilson, to be leaked to sympathetic pressmen. Using our contacts in the press and among union officials, word of the material contained in MI5 files, and the fact that Wilson was considered a security risk, would be passed round. Soundings in the office had already been taken and up to thirty officers had given their approval to the scheme. Facsimile copies of some files were to be made and distributed to overseas newspapers, and the matter was to be raised in Parliament for maximum effect.

By his own admission, in the years that followed, Wright and other MI5 officers engaged in twenty-three criminal conspiracies and committed twelve acts of treason against the elected government of the day. Most of this involved spewing out propaganda that Wilson was a security risk to his ‘contacts in the press’. They made good use of Private Eye magazine.

These revelations were entirely consistent with Wallace’s revelations of Colin Wallace about ‘John Shaw’ and Operation Clockwork Orange.

178. The paedophile blackmailer from the Monday Club.

One of the problems for a number of the MPs who might have favoured an inquiry into the anti-Wilson plot, was that the Tory whips maintained a ‘dirt book’ with which to blackmail them.

The anti-Wilson conspirators also kept files on MPs.

George Kennedy Young, the former Deputy Chief of MI6, was one of the anti-Wilson plotters. He had participated in the failed bid to topple the government of Syria, Operation Struggle.  He also plotted the assassination of President Nasser of Egypt , and along with the CIA, was involved in the successful ouster of Prime Minister Mossadeq of Iran in the 1950s.

Young had joined the Conservative Party after he left MI6 miffed that Wilson had not appointed him as its chief. Young was a member of the extremist Monday Club. His intelligence habits never abandoned him. He collected dirt on MPs, including those who were attracted to young males. These undoubtedly included fellow Monday Clubbers such as Jim Molyneaux MP and Molyneaux’s close friend, Harvey Proctor MP. Proctor met at least one young male from NI, presumably through Molyneaux.

179. Michael McCaul of MI5 and others are named in the Commons.

On 23 November 1988, Labour MP Chris Mullins raised the issue of the plot against Wilson. He denounced Michael McCaul of MI5 and others during a speech he gave in the Commons about the plot:

I propose to examine [PM Thatcher’s] statement of 6 May last year [denying a plot against Wilson] in the light of information which has become available since then. .. The Prime Minister said: ‘There have been interviews with officers in post in the relevant parts of the security service at that time, including officers whose names have been made public.’—[Official Report, 6 May 1987; Vol. 115, c. 724.] Students of official statements will note the careful reference to ‘officers in post’. The problem is that most of those who were alleged to have been involved in, or were aware of, what was going on departed the service of MI5 and MI6 before the commencement of this alleged inquiry.

To name but a few, Arthur Martin retired in or around 1970, Patrick Stewart retired not long after, Barry Russell-Jones left in 1981, Tony Brooks and Jeremy Wetherall left in 1978, Charles Elwell left in 1979, Harry Wharton left in 1980, Harold Doyne Ditmus, Michael McCaul, Ray Whitby and Robert Holden have also retired, James Speirs of MI6 left the service in 1986 and Peter Troughton left in or about 1978. The only one who to my knowledge is still serving is Mollie Sugden. All those people could have assisted with inquiries. It would be interesting to know from the Minister how many were interviewed. I suspect that the answer is none.

Mullins also pointed out that Thatcher had claimed that all of the MI5 officers who had been interviewed had denied they were involved in, or aware of the plot. Mullins was not impressed

If that is so, one can only conclude that the wrong people were interviewed or that those interviewed were, as the saying goes, economical with the truth. I make no allegation as to who was involved, but most of the 30 or so MI5 and MI6 officers who served with Peter Wright in the K5 branch of the intelligence service at Gower Street in the early 1970s must have at least been aware of what was going on. Indeed, some of them obviously talked frankly to David Leigh [Sunday Observer journalist and author of The Wilson Plot].

Mullin pointed out that two of them, Jeremy Wetherall and Harry Wharton:

are said to have had in their possession an entirely innocent picture of Harold Wilson, accompanied by a young woman, taken many years ago in Moscow. Apparently that photograph came from MI6. What were they doing with it, and why was it being circulated?

Ian Cameron and Denis Payne should be added to the list of treacherous MI5 officers.

180. Private Eye magazine.

Chris Mullins has described how the smear campaign was executed with the aid of Private Eye. It hinged on leaking information from MI5’s file on Wilson.

In 1974 and 1975, someone in MI5 was clearly feeding Patrick Marnham of Private Eye very detailed material which seemed to have come from the ‘Harry Worthington’ [i.e. Harold Wilson] file which was kept locked in a safe in the office of the director-general [of MI5].

181. Chapman Pincher

Sources in the intelligence service were also spreading lies about Wilson, his ministers and Labour members of parliament to other journalists including Chapman Pincher. It is well known that one of Pincher’s sources was Lord Rothschild; the identity of the others is unclear.

The name of another of Pincher’s source became known later, Michael McCaul. The MI5 man had been a source of stories since the early 1960s. In his autobiography, Pincher described how in 1961:

..  I was approached by McCaul with an exclusive newspaper story which, he explained, would do MI5 and the nation a valuable service. He had a series of cards which were case-records of men and women who, while visiting Moscow, had been suborned by KGB agents into giving them secret information. He then explained that Britain was shortly to stage a big electronics exhibition Moscow and many of those taking part in it worked for firms involved with secret defence contracts and, so, could be prime targets for recruitment, by bribes or blackmail by the KGB, having been induced into blackmailable situations, mainly sexual, which had been surreptitiously photographed. He, therefore, wanted me to issue a warning on MI5’s behalf by printing a few of the case-records, allegedly from MI5’s files, to publicise what the KGB might try to do. They were so interesting that I did so in a large feature given much prominence. (70)

182. Wright reveals Michael Hanley was aware of the plot.

Michael Hanley, the former D-G of MI5, was aware of the anti-Wilson machination.

No fool, Wilson had suspected a plot was afoot in 1975. That summer, he summonsed Maurice Oldfield of MI6 and asked him about the rumours which were in circulation about one. Oldfield replied that he knew about the rumours and pointed to a section of MI5 which he described as being unreliable. Oldfield knew enough about what was happening to contact Wright whom he advised to go to Sir Michael Hanley, the D-G of MI5, and confess his involvement in the plot against Wilson. Wright did this the next morning and wrote in Spycatcher that Hanley:

went as white as a sheet. He might have suspected that feelings against Wilson ran high in the office, but now he was learning that half of his staff were up to their necks in a plot to get rid of the Prime Minister … Ironically, his first reaction was anger with Maurice [Oldfield]. ‘Bloody Maurice’, he raged. ‘Poking his nose into our business.’ When he calmed down he asked me for the names. I gave them. Having come so far I could not very well refuse.

Wilson called in Hanley on the afternoon of 7 August, 1975, and confronted him with what Oldfield had revealed to him. Hanley tried to convince Wilson that the plotting had ended.

182A. The Child Care & Social Policy Division Report, 1991.

In 1991, J. R. Kearney of Northern Ireland’s Child Care and Social Policy Division, was asked to prepare a report about Kincora for the NIO. At the time Peter Brooke was NI Secretary.

On 28 March 1991, Kearney sent a ‘fuller brief’ on Kincora for the attention of the ‘Minister’. The reference to the ‘Minister’ may have been to Brooke, but was more likely to one of his junior ministers.

In the letter which accompanied the brief, Kearney advised its recipients that:

The brief has been passed by Mr Rickard in SIL (MI5).

Rickard was a very senior MI5 officer. He died in the Chinook helicopter crash in 1994. If MI5 had no hand, act or part in the Kincora scandal, why did the service interfere with the work of the Child Care and Social Policy Division, insisting that it have the right to ‘clear’ the report before it was circulated to the ‘Minister’ and the others at the NIO destined to see it?

Was MI5 afraid that the name of an abuser might slip out?

Was MI5 simply being overcautious, concerned that an unknown clue might surface?

183. Wallace has his reputation restored to him.

In 1996 the Court of Appeal overturned Wallace’s conviction for manslaughter.

Dr West, the corrupt Home Office pathologist, evaded prosecution for perjury because he was dying of cancer.

The British government did not order a judicial inquiry to find out what had happened behind the scenes in the prosecution of Wallace.

184. Lord Hunt tells the truth about the anti-Wilson plot. This confirmed what Wallace had been saying all along.

Wallace’s successful appeal was not the only blow MI5 sustained in 1996.

In August 1996, no less a figure than Lord John Hunt, Cabinet Secretary, 1973-79, acknowledged that MI5 had plotted against Harold Wilson. Hunt told a Channel 4 documentary that:

There is no doubt at all that a few, a very few, malcontents in MI5, people who should not have been there in the first place, a lot of them like Peter Wright who were right-wing, malicious and had serious personal grudges, gave vent to these and spread damaging malicious stories about that Labour government.

Hunt’s revelations were still not enough to bring about a judicial inquiry.

Chapter 14.

Lying to Parliament

185.  The House of Commons was misled on other occasions, most blatantly about the murder of 11 people in 1971. The record has never been corrected.

At 8:45 p.m. on 4 December 1971, a UVF gang bombed a small pub in Belfast called McGurks, a cosy place where Catholics and Protestants from the same neighbourhood – all of whom knew each other well – met for a few drinks.

The British government did not want to have to introduce internment (detention without trial) for Loyalist paramilitaries for a variety of reasons. Hence, the bombing of the bar was blamed on the Provisional IRA.

On 6 December 1971, Stanley McMaster, a Unionist MP for East Belfast, asked Lord Balneil, Edward Heath’s Minister of State for Defence, about the attack. The question was a plant. In response, Balneil told Parliament:

The security forces have not yet been able to establish precisely where the bomb was placed.

Investigations by Army ammunition technical officers indicate that the bomb was detonated within the structure, probably just inside the bar on the ground floor. I am afraid that I cannot be more positive than that, because hon. Members will have seen on television the extent of the damage and will realise the difficulty of establishing firmer conclusions. But investigations are continuing.

Balneil’s answer misleading in the extreme.  48 hours before he made his statement in parliament, Army bomb disposal experts had reported the precise spot where the bomb had detonated and that was ‘in the entrance way on the ground floor’.

Documents obtained by Ciarán MacAirt of Paper Trail show that Balneil’s response to McMaster was prepared and ‘approved’ by senior MoD officials in Northern Ireland and at the MoD in London.   The declassified documents show that officials were also running a nasty whispering campaign. A script was prepared. One line was that:

I understand – though this should not be revealed publicly – that two of those killed have been identified as members of the Brady [Provisional] IRA.

‘Brady’ was a reference to Ruairi O Bradaigh one of the co-founders of the Provisional IRA. (The other faction was the Official IRA.) The allegation about IRA involvement – whether Provisional or Official – was totally false.

Additional scripts were prepared for presentation to Parliament as part of the conspiracy to conceal the true identity of the UVF attackers, and blame the atrocity on the IRA. A question was made ready so it could be fed to a pliable MP who could seek an update about the McGurk’s attack. The following ‘approved’ answer was prepared for Lord Balneil to give as an answer to it in Parliament:

Investigations are not yet complete, and inquests have not yet been held. However, further investigations by forensic experts and by Army ammunition technical officers have confirmed, on the basis of the pattern of debris and the effect of the explosion on the structure that the bomb exploded within the building. Five of the deaths were as a direct result of the blast, not as a result of the building collapsing. These conclusions are consistent with theories that the bomb went off accidentally, perhaps while in transit.

In the event, although senior officials at Army HQNI and at the MoD approved the statement, it was not used.  It is believed that the initial attempts to blame the IRA for the attack had been so effective that further disinformation was not necessary.  Nevertheless, the inescapable fact is that this was yet another deliberate attempt to mislead Parliament.

185A.  Manipulating Harold Wilson so he misleads the House of Commons.

As noted earlier, Harold Wilson became prime minister of the UK again in early 1974. He wanted to embark upon a policy of releasing detainees who had been interned. The security forces were aghast and launched an operation to thwart him.

Two years earlier, the security forces had discovered IRA documents which outlined a plan to defend Belfast in the event of a breakdown in law and order. The plans showed how they hoped to defend Nationalist communities in Belfast from attacks by Loyalist paramilitaries and their supporters. 

These plans were dusted down and shown to the new Secretary of State for NI, Merlyn Rees MP of the Labour Party. They were, however, misrepresented to Rees. He was told that they were part of a scheme to create chaos in Belfast. He spoke to Wilson and the pair were diverted from their intended path of releasing internees. Wilson addressed the House of Commons the following morning thus: 

Last night I was informed by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who was in conference with senior officers of the RUC and the Army, that in the last few days the security forces in Northern Ireland have come into possession of a quantity of documents, the general purport of which I must disclose to the House.

These documents reveal a specific and calculated plan by the IRA, by means of ruthless and indiscriminate violence, to foment inter-sectarian hatred and a degree of chaos with the object of enabling the IRA to achieve a position in which it proceeds to occupy and control certain pre-designated and densely populated areas in the city of Belfast and its suburbs. The plan shows a deliberate intention to manipulate the emotions of large sections of the people by inflicting violence and hardship on them in the hope of creating a situation in which the IRA could present itself as the protector of the Catholic population.

Ted Heath contributed to the issue saying:

The whole House will wish to join the Prime Minister, as it has already demonstrated, in his congratulations to the Services, the security forces, the Army and the RUC on the effective operation that they have carried out. At the same time, the account that he has given of documents which the Services have found confirms what has been known to his previous administration and to ourselves – that it was one of the major objectives of the IRA to find every possible means of creating conflict between the two communities in Northern Ireland. We therefore welcome the fact that the right hon. Gentleman will release all the documentation he can in order to demonstrate this clearly not only to Northern Ireland but to the Republic and to those who take an interest in these proceedings elsewhere in the world. I hope that it will be possible for the right hon. Gentleman, after consultation with the security authorities, to release the documentation as early as possible.

We respect the fact that, if any criminal charges are likely to follow, such documentation must be reserved, but the right hon. Gentleman will recognise that the IRA will waste no time in trying to launch a propaganda counter-offensive of accusations that this is the work of the British Government, of British Intelligence or of the Protestant community, and that therefore the publication of documentation should be as complete as possible in order to show everyone exactly what has been worked out as a specific operation by the IRA in order to try to achieve its purposes. [Heath 13 May 1974.]

Chapter 15.

Wallace is vindicated about collusion.

186.  The Jackal, an agent of RUC Special Branch.

The Historical Enquiries Team (HET), the Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, the Barron Inquiry and a string of court cases taken against the NI State have established that a number of Loyalist terrorists who committed murder were agents of the RUC Special Branch. Yet again, the concerns Wallace had expressed about collusion turned out to be justified.

Baroness Nuala O’Loan, NI Police Ombudsman, 1999-2007, was one of those who gained access to RUC files. She was aghast at what she read in them. The excuse given to her to justify the relationship between the RUC Special Branch and the UVF was that it ‘preserved life’. Yet, as O’Loan observed, these men were guilty of multiple murders and their relationship with the RUC seemed to have saved preserved ‘precious little life’.[1]

One of these agents was Robin ‘The Jackal’ Jackson, the leader of the Mid Ulster UVF. In addition to the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, he was involved in the Miami Showband massacre and the campaign of sectarian murder of innocent Catholics in what became known as the Murder Triangle.

During 1973 and 1974, Wallace sought clearance to target the principal members of the mid-Ulster UVF. In June 1974, a month after the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, he was denied permission to target Jackson,  his superior, Billy Hanna and other UVF men.

Judge Barron stated of Jackson that there he was ‘reliably said to have had relationships with British Intelligence and/or RUC Special Branch officers’.

Jackson died from cancer in 1998. He was responsible for approximately fifty murders.

The full truth about Jackson remains buried.

187. The Jackal and the murder of Sgt Joe Campbell, an honest member of the RUC.

The Wallace case is also linked to another scandal, the murder of Sgt Joe Campbell by his colleagues in the RUC. Campbell was murdered by rogue elements in the RUC, some of whom were involved in having Wallace dismissed from his job in 1975, i.e. the RUC’s murderous dirty tricks cabal.

Campbell was murdered because he had become aware of State involvement in the importation of Loyalist arms.

Robin Jackson was involved in his murder.

In April 1974, a secret briefing document was prepared for then prime minister, Harold Wilson. It informed him that an Army Intelligence unit, known as the Special Reconnaissance Unit, had replaced the Military Reaction Force (MRF) units which had been created in 1971. The MRF had carried out undercover surveillance and assassinations in NI. The document informed Wilson that the new unit was operating under the cover name ‘Northern Ireland Training and Advisory Team’ (NITAT) and was under the control of HQNI.

On 22 July 1974 shots were fired at a police car on the northern outskirts of Ballymena, some 20 miles north of Belfast. Two of the car’s three occupants were wounded. It was assumed the attack was the work of the IRA.

Three years later, on the evening of 25 February 1977, Sgt Campbell, a Catholic member of the RUC, was shot and killed as he closed the gates of Cushendall RUC station where he had been based since 1963. Initially, the killing looked like yet another atrocity by the IRA. Sgt Campbell was an immensely popular police officer within the local community and there was a tradition of policing in his family. His father and grandfather had been members of the Garda. He had only joined the RUC as a last resort because there were no vacancies in the Garda in 1963.

Gradually, information began to emerge that the attack on the police car in July 1974 and the murder of Sgt Campbell in 1977 were not the work of the IRA. The chief suspect was a RUC Special Branch officer, Charles McCormick. Even more concerning, it was believed that McCormick and a republican double agent he was running, Anthony O’Doherty, worked for the Army’s new ‘Special Reconnaissance Unit.’

In 1980, McCormick was charged with Sgt Campbell’s murder and 26 other offences, including possession of explosives and firearms and carrying out a series of armed robberies. The chief prosecution witness at the 1982 trial was Anthony O’Doherty, his former partner in crime. At the conclusion of the trial, McCormick was acquitted of the murder of Sgt Campbell, but he was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment on foot of convictions relating to 27 other charges, including possession of explosives and firearms and armed robbery.

Two years later those convictions were overturned.

Four months after McCormick’s convictions were quashed, O’Doherty was informed that James Prior, the Secretary of State for NI, had recommended that the Royal Prerogative be used to remit eight years of his sentence. This meant he regained his freedom.

Researchers who have studied the case believe that McCormick was the killer of Sgt Campbell and that he was assisted by Robin Jackson.

Jackson worked closely with the RUC Special Branch and several Army Intelligence officers during the 1970s. He even had photographs taken of himself at his home socialising with Captain Robert Nairac, a well-known British Army undercover operative.

It is believed that Jackson was recruited by McCormick to kill Sgt Campbell.

A report by the NI Ombudsman, Dr Michael Maguire, in 2014 concluded:

In considering the allegations that the motive for the murder of Sergeant Campbell included his knowledge that firearms were being imported by loyalist paramilitaries through the Cushendall area and that his murder involved rogue elements of the security forces, members of the UVF including Robin Jackson (now deceased) and others, I am mindful of the limited information available with the passage of time. Whilst my investigation has established some evidence that the security forces were aware of arms being smuggled into Red Bay, near Cushendall and that there is a witness statement alleging direct culpability in this regard, the overall picture is inconclusive. On the basis of the information available I can neither discount nor substantiate the allegations of a wider conspiracy into the murder of Sergeant Campbell.

Dr Maguire went on to say:

There is sufficient, reliable evidence that senior police officers throughout the RUC’s command structure, including the then Head of Special Branch and quite probably the Chief Constable, were aware of concerns, which had been documented, about a threat to his life and failed to act upon them.

At the initial hearing at Belfast Coroner’s Court in Belfast in June 2022, a barrister for Sgt Campbell’s family raised the question about an Army officer being at the murder scene. Karen Quinlivan QC told coroner Patrick McGurgan that the claim emerged during a review exercise into outstanding legacy cases in 2016.

We identified that there was information that suggests the involvement of a military intelligence liaison officer. .. It appears from the police report that a military intelligence liaison officer was at the scene of the murder on the night of the murder in the company of Robin Jackson.

Mr McGurgan told the barrister representing the Army that he expected the MoD to comment on the claim later in the inquest process. ‘That’s something that I will be expecting the MoD to have comment on in due course,’ he said.

To date, nothing more has been heard about the alleged presence of the ‘military intelligence liaison officer’.

There is a very serious concern that in murdering Sgt Campbell, Charles McCormick was acting with the full knowledge of one of his Special Branch superiors, ‘D’.

‘D’ is the man who was the driving force behind the RUC’s involvement in the framing of Colin Wallace for allegedly leaking restricted and classified documents to Robert Fisk.

Chapter 16.

The Lamentable Hart Fiasco.

188.  The concerns of the NI Court of Appeal.

In 2016, the Lord Chief Justice of NI, Sir Declan Morgan, commented in a judgement by the Court of Appeal relating to Gary Hoy, a victim of sexual abuse at Kincora, that

This society has been rocked to its core by the shocking disclosure of the abuse of children in this community over many years. Just as shocking has been the manner in which the institutions to which some of the abusers belonged sought to protect the institution rather than the children. There is a suggestion in this case that children in Kincora were abused and prostituted in order to satisfy the interests of national security. If that is true it must be exposed. As a society we must not repeat the errors of the institutions and should remember our obligations to the children. If the suggestion is not true the rumour and suspicion surrounding this should be allayed.’ [27 May 2016 at paragraph 41]

189.  The Hart Report of 2017

Unfortunately for all concerned, the Hart Inquiry, which reported seven months later, failed to allay concerns about Kincora.

Colin Wallace wrote to the Hart Inquiry (also known as the Historical Institutional Abuse, or HIA, inquiry) chaired by Sir Anthony Hart, enclosing an extract from a letter he had written to the Institution of Professional Civil Servants (IPCS) at the time of his disciplinary hearing in 1975. No one doubted the authenticity of the letter. It referred to ‘homosexual prostitution at a children’s home in Belfast’. Hart dismissed the document because it did not specifically refer to Kincora by name. Hart was looking at a number of homes, not merely Kincora. If he truly believed that the reference was not to Kincora, he surely should have asked Wallace to identify to which home he was referring.

He did not.

190. The Bangor connection: Hart ignored a document which revealed: ‘Joseph Mains may be extensively involved in a prostitution ring supplying boys to hotels in Belfast and Bangor.‘

Hart ignored another crucial document written by Wallace in the mid-1970s which revealed that: ‘Joseph Mains may be extensively involved in a prostitution ring supplying boys to hotels in Belfast and Bangor.’

This lapse on the part of Hart was alarming.

Hart heard evidence from James Miller (not to be mixed up with the MI5 agent). Miller described how Mains trafficked him and other Kincora residents to a hotel in Bangor in a van. He had to wait outside the hotel in the vehicle while, one after another, the boys returned to it. He recalled how they were sobbing after their ordeal inside the building. On this occasion, Miller was lucky not to be sent inside.

Miller’s evidence was presented to the Hart Inquiry in 2016. No one doubted he was telling the truth, nor challenged his credibility. Hence, Miller presented a serious problem for Hart as he undermined the narrative Hart had latched onto at an early stage, i.e., that the abuse at Kincora went no further than the home itself. Since there was no way to undermine Miller’s credibility, Hart’s solution was to ignore him.

Wallace’s notes indicate that the hotel was called the Queen’s Court. The choice of this hotel was particularly cynical: it was frequented by lots of young teenagers because it had a disco and pop bands performed at it.

191. Hart and the evidence about the Park Avenue and Girton Lodge.

Wallace’s note also described how the ring took boys to the Park Avenue Hotel and the Girton Lodge.

MI5 had bedrooms on the first floor of the Park Avenue bugged.

Richard Kerr was abused at the Park Avenue.

All of this was ignored by Hart.

192. Hart and the visit of an MI5 officer to Kincora.

Brian Gemmell, the captain in military intelligence who reported to Ian Cameron of MI5, divulged that one of his military colleagues had once been asked to drive a man in civilian clothing from HQNI to Kincora. At the time MI5 had offices at HQNI alongside those of the British Army.

A similar account had appeared in Chris Moore’s book on Kincora. In his report Hart was faced with facts even he could not wish away. He stated that:

At page 145 of his book The Kincora Scandal, Chris Moore refers to an account by a former Military Intelligence Officer he refers to as ‘Dennis’ driving a civilian to Kincora ‘at the end of 1975 or early in 1976’. The Inquiry has been able to identify ‘Dennis, and at the Inquiry’s request the MoD traced Dennis who provided a witness statement to the Inquiry. In it he described how he was instructed to drive an unnamed visitor to East Belfast. He collected his passenger at HQNI at night, he believes around 7 pm. At his passenger’s direction he drove to a house in East Belfast that he now knows to be Kincora. His passenger entered the building where he remained for a period which Dennis describes as not being sufficiently longer or shorter than an hour, i.e., approximately one hour. When this passenger emerged Dennis drove him back to HQNI.[2]

Hart did not draw the obvious conclusion from this, namely that Kincora was of interest to the intelligence community.

193.  Hart ignores other key witnesses.

Hart was also aware that Hugh Mooney of the IRD, Britain’s former black propaganda department, had given an interview to The Sunday Correspondent during which he admitted that Wallace had repeatedly mentioned Kincora to him. This made no impression on Hart either. Hart did not call Mooney to testify before his inquiry.

Hart did not secure statements from Peter Broderick, Tony Staughton or Geoffrey Hutton either, let alone call them to give evidence from the witness box.

194.  Hart, the Chief of MI6 and Kincora.

In 1980 MI5 (which is attached to the Home Office) carried out an inquiry into the conduct of the former Chief of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield, 1973-78. (MI6 is attached to the Foreign Office). This happened because Oldfield had been caught lying about his homosexuality and was deemed a security risk. Oldfield was also an abuser of ‘rent boys’, underage male prostitutes. MI6 reviewed their files relating to the matter in 2011. According to the Hart Report, ‘Officer G’ of MI6 ‘examined four ring binders with material relating to Sir Maurice Oldfield, including the 1980 MI5 investigation’. Officer G proceeded to describe a ‘relationship’ Oldfield had ‘had with Kincora boys’ home (KBH) in Belfast’. Oldfield was linked to Kincora ‘through his friendship of the KBH Head’.

Hart concluded that this was not evidence of MI6 knowledge of Kincora because Officer G had made a mistake and was apparently merely referring to allegations about a relationship. However, neither MI6 nor the Hart Report quoted a single contemporaneous report alleging a friendship between Oldfield and Joseph Mains, the only man who fits the description of ‘KBH Head’. Indeed, there is no trace anywhere of such a report, nor one about a friendship with any of the other staff at Kincora.

This astonishing revelation was ignored by the British media. It did not prompt Hart to conclude that the intelligence services knew about Kincora before 1980.

195. Hart and the Chief of the British Secret Service: Hart contradicts himself.

There is an obvious error at paragraph 607 of Chapter 29 of the Hart Report where it is stated that:

As we have explained, Richard Kerr has alleged that he was sexually abused by Sir Maurice Oldfield.

Emphatically, Kerr has never made any such an allegation.

Incredibly, at paragraph 159 of Chapter 26 the following appears:

Kerr did not know at the time who Oldfield was, he says, and does not suggest that he abused Kincora boys.

This execrable error has never been corrected

196. Oldfield’s visits to Northern Ireland ‘between 1974 and 1979’.

Throughout his report, Hart refers to MI6 by its alternative acronym, SIS. Like MI6, Oldfield was given a clean bill of health by the Hart Report:

The Inquiry has examined all the material held by SIS relating to Sir Maurice Oldfield as described by SIS Officer A in his statement of 8 December 2016 and found nothing to indicate that Sir Maurice Oldfield ever visited Northern Ireland before he took up his appointment as Security Coordinator in October 1979. (624)

This was not so. Michael Schneider (not his real name), an Englishman who worked at Lisburn British Army HQ, where MI6 was based in the 1970s, recalls at least one visit to Belfast by Oldfield while he was Chief of MI6.

Hart was aware of his identity of this witness yet failed to call him as a witness.

In addition, a partially declassified MI5 telegram makes reference to the fact – as Hart put it – MI5 was ‘aware of allegations that the police suspect’ that Oldfield was involved in the Kincora scandal. Crucially, the part of the MI5 telegram which Hart published explained that the suspicion was:

that Sir M. Oldfield was involved in the Kincora boys home affair in the course of occasional visits to Northern Ireland (associated with his job) between 1974 and 1979.

How can this admission of ‘occasional visits’ be squared with Hart’s conclusion of none at all?

197. The witness who saw Brian McDermott Child Murder Memo was not called.

Michael Schneider had vital evidence: he had seen the Brian McDermott Murder memo of November 1974. It addressed the murder of the boy and the wider Kincora scandal.

Hart dismissed it as a forgery on the part of Wallace.

198. Michael Schneider could have exposed the forgery of a statement in his name.

Michael Schneider was shocked when he was furnished with a statement which was drafted in his name (described earlier). It contained a number of serious lies, including one about the Brian McDermott murder. The fact that the RUC was prepared to commit forgery casts a doubt over all of the apparent witness statements taken by George Caskey and his team. Hart relied upon them as gospel.

199. MI6: ‘We certainly ran at least one agent who was aware of sexual malpractice at the home’.

One MI6 file that slipped out of its usually airtight archive in London was furnished to the Hart Inquiry. It addressed ‘various allegations surrounding the Kincora Boys’ Home’ and stated that:

We certainly ran at least one agent who was aware of sexual malpractice at the home and who may have mentioned this to his SIS (i.e. MI6) or Security Service [i.e. MI5)  case officer.

Richard Kerr is certain that he burst in upon a meeting between Mains, Oldfield and other men in suits at Kincora once after he returned to the home unexpectedly after his school was shut down during cold weather.

MI6 might have made this admission as part of a damage limitation exercise. They may have been afraid that an MI6 officer was about to become a whistle-blower. In 2015 an anonymous MI6 agent confirmed to the Daily Express that the Kincora whistle-blower Robin Bryans had tried to expose the scandal in the 1970s. The MI6 agent was probably referring to the fact Bryans had informed two former NI ministers about the Anglo-Irish Vice Ring (A-IVR), namely Lord Donaldson and Lord Shackleton.

200. Hart neglected the Tyrie-Orchin memo although it was published in a book featuring Wallace, McGrath and McKeague in 2016.

The NIO and MI6 certainly knew of John McKeague’s sexual deviancy. McKeague was an important part of the network that revolved around Kincora. The security departments of the NIO were staffed by MI5 and MI6 officers masquerading as civil servants along with some from the MoD. On 23 May 1975, Andy Tyrie, the Supreme Commander of the UDA – who is still alive –  and another UDA commander, John Orchin, held a meeting with James Allan, a senior FCO officer then attached to the NIO but in reality an MI6 officer. According to declassified British files, during the discussion there were ‘some ribald discussions of Mr McKeague’s proclivities’. (CJ/43734.)

The memo was published in Margaret Urwin’s book on collusion, ‘A State in Denial’ at page 139. The book had six entries in its index relating to John McKeague; one for William McGrath and three for Colin Wallace. Urwin works with Justice for the Forgotten, an organisation which campaign, inter alia, for justice for the victims of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings.

Hart did not deal with the Tyrie-Orchin document in his report which appeared in January 2017, i.e., after the appearance of Urwin’s book. ‘A State in Denial’ received uniformly favourable reviews and widespread coverage in the print and broadcast media. It would appear Hart was not aware of this important book.

201. The papers relating to Colin Wallace which Maurice Oldfield kept at his flat.

When the police searched Oldfield’s flat in 1980, they found papers relating to Wallace. The odds must be high that Oldfield was concerned about what Wallace knew about him and his links to Kincora.

Hart failed to consider this issue.

202. Hart ignored Tam Dalyell.

Tam Dalyell MP of the Labour Party achieved fame for having roasted Thatcher over the sinking of the Belgrano in 1982. Dalyell was a friend of Oldfield. The pair discussed Wallace’s case before the spymaster’s death in 1981. Oldfield expressed the view that Wallace had been ‘unjustly treated’.

Perhaps Oldfield’s conscience at the harm he had occasioned during his life was eating away at him as his health deteriorated. He died on 11 March 1981.

Dalyell wrote to David Cameron on 29 September 2014, explaining what Oldfield had said to him.

203. Hart’s conclusion about Oldfield.

Hart’s core finding about Oldfield was that:

Having reviewed all of the evidence we are satisfied that the allegations about Sir Maurice Oldfield’s connections with Kincora have no substance. (625)

204. Hart and James Miller: Hart did not read his brief.

The case of James Miller (the MI5 agent, not the former resident of Kincora) has been described earlier but merits a brief recap here. One of Miller’s reports to MI5 in 1972 described McGrath as an abuser. Hart stated that MI5 should have reported this to the RUC but did not.

Hart did not bother to ask MI5 why this was so.

Instead, Hart developed the notion that MI5 had kept silent to protect Miller. Yet, anyone could have reported McGrath to the RUC, especially one of his many victims. The UDA did not like McGrath and one of its members could have blown the whistle. Since McGrath was not in the UDA, there would not have been an internal inquiry had he been arrested. More importantly, Miller fled NI in 1974 when the UDA discovered he was an MI5 agent. Hart, who did not read his brief, was not aware of this. During the period 1974-1980, the abuse at Kincora continued while Miller was safely back in England. Hart’s erroneous speculation about MI5’s desire to protect Miller’s cover could not apply to the period 1974-80 as Miller was no longer an MI5 agent. So, why didn’t MI5 report McGrath to the police during 1974-80? The Hart report is a lamentable failure on this issue.

205. Hart did not read his brief in relation to the Brian McDermott Child Murder Memo.

The Hart Archives contain the hand written version of Wallace’s Brian McDermott Murder Memo of November 1974. It was typed up for ease of reading by Wallace’s solicitor.

Hart claimed that it ‘first came to light’ in 1984. This was not so. The RUC were given a copy of it in 1982. This is clear from Hart’s own archives.

206. Hart had a copy of the hand written version of the McDermott Murder Memo yet claimed the original was the typed version.

George Caskey had pretended the typed version of the Brian McDermott Memo was completed by two typing machines and was therefore a forgery.

Although Hart had a copy of the version written by hand, he erroneously described the ‘original’ as a typed version at paragraph 482 of his report (conclusions section).

Hart should have read Paul Foot’s book which described the true origin of the memo. The two crucial books on Kincora were those of Chris Moore and Paul Foot. If Hart did not read Foot’s book, it is yet another alarming indictment of his approach to his inquiry.

Had Hart read Foot’s book, he would have discovered that Foot named the two forensic experts who had examined the typed version of the 1974 memo. How did Hart deal with this? Foot was dead by the time of the Hart inquiry. So he wrote to Wallace. But Wallace had lost all faith in Hart and did not reply. Hart proceeded to conclude that the memo was not genuine because Wallace was hiding something by not supplying the names of the forensic experts. None of this would have been possible if Hart had bothered to read Foot’s book.

207. Hart ignored Hugh Mooney’s letter which confirmed the authenticity of the 1973 Tara Press briefing about McGrath and the fact the MoD had misled Parliament.

In the early 1990s the House of Commons Defence Committee investigated some of the claims made by Colin Wallace. Hugh Mooney was aware of what was going on and sent a letter dated 1 December 1992 to the “Information Department of the FCO. It read as follows:

Dear Margaret,

Since talking to you about the House of Commons Defence Committee’s special report on Colin Wallace, I have had a chance to look at the documents and fear that the Ministry can be accused of misleading the Committee.

In his letter dated 14 February, the clerk to the committee asked for a copy of a document relating to TARA reproduced on page 292 of Paul Foot’s [book] Who Framed Colin Wallace [i.e. the ‘73TPB’]. In reply, the private secretary said: ‘We have not been able to establish whether this is an official document.

This is surprising since the MoD has identified the official who originated the document from his distinctive italic note which said ‘Some ‘off-the-cuff’ information on TARA for the Press’. I myself recall passing the document to Wallace. Other manuscript notes on the page show that it was entered as page 45 of Information Policy file at Headquarters Northern Ireland. All of this is known to Wallace and his supporters, who can be expected to raise it. The MoD will be found to have lied and Wallace’s credibility will have been increased.

None of this made any impression upon Hart who, as noted earlier, did not ask Hugh Mooney to appear before his tribunal. Had Mooney been asked to testify, he could have told Hart quite a lot about Wallace’s concerns about Kincora in the early 1970s, a topic the two men had discussed.

208. Hart and the meeting Hugh Mooney attended about Kincora.

The puzzle about the failure to call Hugh Mooney to testify at the Hart Inquiry is more perplexing when one considers that he knew Mooney knew had useful evidence. At paragraph 6 of Hart Inquiry document KIN-200535 it is recorded that:

Mr. Mooney said [he] recalled one meeting referring to the Kincora Boys’ Home, but no reference to it as a homosexual honey-trap run by MI5. IP [PSYOPS] had only been interested in TARA the alleged Protestant paramilitary group.

Just what was the meeting about then?

Psychological operations officers did not convene to discuss routine matters. Their operations were usually directed at paramilitary groups such as Tara.

Why would a PSYOPS meeting take place during the relentless and murderous bedlam of 1973 with Kincora Boys’ Home on the agenda, if it did not relate to McGrath, TARA, sexual abuse, or all three of these topics?

One thing is certain: Hugh Mooney’s account of the PSYOPS meeting is at odds with the Hart Inquiry’s conclusion that Kincora was not referred to by name at Army HQ NI as early as 1973.

209. Wallace alerts the Hart Inquiry to his dealings with Roland Moyle MP.

On 21 February 2017, Wallace wrote to Patrick Butler, Solicitor to the Hart Inquiry, about his contact with Roland Moyle MP in the mid-1970s. Wallace had furnished him with copies of documents about his PSYOP work.

This was the act of a man who was confident about his actions. In the letter, Wallace told Butler that:

Only a few weeks after my disciplinary hearing (in 1975), I briefed a London solicitor and a Northern Ireland Minister, Roland Moyle, on ‘Clockwork Orange’. Moreover, the Inquiry is well aware from the documents I submitted to it that my ‘Clockwork Orange’ material contained references to prominent political figures including Edward Heath, Jeremy Thorpe, Cyril Smith, William van Straubenzee, the Rev. Ian Paisley, Sir Knox Cunningham, Harold Wilson, etc.

Sending a letter of this nature to the Hart Inquiry would have been a foolish move if Wallace was making up stories.

The Hart Inquiry published a handwritten note from 1990 in which Moyle confirmed his meeting with Wallace. While his recollection was ‘vague’, he recalled Wallace had mentioned ‘plots against Northern Ireland politicians rather than Harold Wilson etc’.

210.  Hart’s conclusion.

Having {i} averted his gaze from a mountain range of evidence; {ii} accepted the dubious Caskey statements; {iii} rejected the Brian McDermott Memo as a forgery; {iv} failed to secure the attendance of crucial witnesses; {v} failed to read his brief properly, {vi} plucked erroneous notions from the air rather than ask appropriate questions; {vi} contradicted himself on the facts before him in respect of Maurice Oldfield, Hart concluded that:

We are satisfied that it was not until 1980 that the RUC Special Branch, MI5 the [MI6] and Army Intelligence became aware that McGrath had been sexually abusing residents at Kincora, and they learnt of that when it became the subject of public allegations and a police investigation. [3]

Worse still, Hart portrayed some of the former residents of Kincora as liars, i.e., those who had disclosed that they had been abused by men other than Mains, McGrath and Semple.

Chapter 17.

The RUC has a lot of questions to answer

211.  The failures of the RUC.

The failures of the RUC with regard to Kincora are legion, some of them have been touched upon in the section featuring George Caskey.

There are many more.

Hugh Mooney was never interviewed by the RUC.  

As noted earlier, in November 1974, Wallace had submitted a lengthy memorandum on Kincora – including the murder of Brian McDermott – to Colonel Geoffrey Hutton, his immediate superior in PSYOPS. Hutton was never interviewed by the RUC. 

In reality, the RUC knew all about the scandal and was part of the intelligence ‘honey trap’. There is documentary proof of their knowledge: on 23 May 1973, Roy Garland, a former member of Tara, left a message on the RUC’s Confidential telephone about McGrath. Garland advised that McGrath was sexually abusing the boys at the home.

Garland’s message was copied to the RUC Special Branch and MI5, but no action was taken. 

212.  The RUC, NIO and Tara Gunrunning.

MI5 and MI6 had other compelling motives to protect McGrath.

He was a key figure in State-Loyalist gunrunning, a practice that was conducted with the connivance of the RUC’s special branch.

State-Loyalist collusion in the assassination of IRA members was the cornerstone of the counter-insurgency policy implemented by Brigadier (later General Sir) Frank Kitson to suppress the IRA. This strategy lasted throughout the Troubles. McGrath’s gunrunning efforts played a part in this endeavour during the 1970s.

Colin Jay Wyatt joined Tara and McGrath’s Orange Lodge in 1973. In subsequent years, he and two other Tara members were involved in repeated attempts to smuggle arms for Tara from South Africa via Holland to NI. Disclosed British government documents shows that the RUC Special Branch and MI5 were aware of McGrath’s visits to Amsterdam.

In his book on Kincora, former BBC journalist, Chris Moore, recounts an interview he conducted with Jay Wyatt (referred to in his book as ‘Adrian’) in which Wyatt claimed that after one arms smuggling trip to Holland, he was invited to McGrath’s home on the Newtownards Road, Belfast, where he met an older man with long grey hair and wearing a pinstripe suit, and spoke with a very refined English accent.’

The meeting lasted about 90 minutes. McGrath later told Wyatt that the stranger was ‘a senior Northern Ireland Office official at Stormont, someone with power and influence and who was a good friend of Tara’s who would always be available to us!’ McGrath also referred to the official as an ‘Under Secretary’, a title that denotes seniority.

213.  The RUC and the NI Police Ombudsman, 2015 – 2022.

In 2022, the Police Ombudsman of NI (PONI) released the latest report about the Kincora scandal. The report was a response to criticisms by seven former Kincora residents about complaints of abuse at the home which, inter-alia, had been ignored by the force. The PONI report confirmed the obvious, namely that former RUC ‘officers failed in their duty to the victims of Kincora because they did not act on the information provided to them during the 1973-1976 period’.

On the surface, therefore, the PONI report could be viewed as a welcome additional piece of the jigsaw. Unfortunately, however, it proceeded to reinforce the myth that the abuse at the home was restricted to three staff members, Mains, McGrath and Raymond Semple. The PONI report emphasised that it was  ‘not the role of the Police Ombudsman to establish whether or not there was a ‘vice ring’. Curiously, it later declares that: ‘Although a matter for police, this investigation has not identified any evidence that Kincora Boys’ Home was the centre of a ‘vice’ or ‘prostitution’ ring and therefore the Police Ombudsman has made no finding in respect of police failings in this regard’.

A fatal flaw with the PONI inquiry was that it ‘gathered and reviewed a considerable amount of evidence and material’ including the dubious statements that had been taken by earlier investigations including the George Caskey forgeries.

214.  The RUC and Joss Cardwell.

The PONI’s report described how it ‘also identified systemic failings which prevented police from being aware of complaints of sexual abuse at Kincora Boys’ Home which had been made to the Belfast Welfare Authority and the former Eastern Health and Social Services Board (EHSSB)’.

However, ‘systemic failings’ were not the root cause of this failure.

Councillor Joshua Cardwell, a former Stormont MP, was chairman of the welfare committee responsible for Kincora. He is not mentioned anywhere in the PONI report. Cardwell’s committee directed the management of Kincora and other homes. Cardwell was himself a key member of the vice ring. He organised trips by residents by car ferry to Liverpool and thence to London by train for abuse by Tory MPs and other VIPs including one TV celebrity (and winner of a celebrity contest) now in his ’70s who has managed to evade scrutiny. He has been involved in children’s charities in the past.

Cardwell committed suicide in 1983 by gassing himself after he was interviewed by the RUC about Kincora.

Wallace’s notes about the trafficking of boys by Mains to hotels (discussed earlier) also noted that: ‘Mains has a brother in the RUC. He also has a questionable relationship with the Belfast Corporation Welfare Committee chairman (Cardwell) and Legal Adviser (Young).’

215.  Wallace’s complaint to the NI Police Ombudsman.

Wallace made a complaint about aspects of his case which involved the RUC to the NI Police Ombudsman who, after a delay of several years, concluded that it was ‘outside its remit’.

216. The secret RUC Dossier.

There have long been rumours that a comprehensive report containing the full truth about the Kincora scandal was compiled by RUC officers as an insurance policy to ensure that they were never rendered scapegoats for the scandal. The odds are overwhelming that any such report was maintained by George Caskey. Caskey died on 24 February 2022, aged 84. Where the dossier is now, is anyone’s guess.

Chapter 18.

Kincora, Collusion and PSYOPs, the scandals that will not go away.

217.  The County Grand Master of Belfast Loyal Orange Lodge. 

On 16 September 2019 RTE radio provided further confirmation of the accuracy of Wallace’s claims when it conducted an interview with a child abuse victim called Paul Graham. As a child, Graham had resided at Bethany House in Dublin from where he was adopted by Edith and William Graham who lived in Belfast.

Graham told RTE’s ‘Liveline’ that he had been sexually abused by a senior figure in the Orange Order. Although not named, the abuser was Thomas Passmore, the County Grand Master of Belfast Loyal Orange Lodge. 

In 1973 Passmore was named in the Tara press briefing that Colin Wallace used to alert journalists to the activities of William McGrath.

The 1973 Tara press briefing (discussed earlier) stated that ‘other people closely associated with McGrath and aware of his activities are, Thomas PASSMORE, Rev PAISLEY, Rev Martin SMYTH, James MOLYNEAUX and Sir Knox CUNNINGHAM QC MP’.

Passmore was a former Justice of the Peace. His appointment was made by the mid-1960s (which was after his rape of Paul Graham).

The file relating to his appointment as a JP must still exist. Who nominated him? Who provided character references?

Thomas Passmore JP, was a senior Loyalist politician and Orangeman who operated at the highest levels of Unionist politics in the 1970s and 1980s. He became County Grand Master of Belfast Loyal Orange Lodge in 1973. He was unmarried and lived in Townsend Street, Belfast.

He was not only an associate of McGrath but purchased the printing press which McGrath’s paramilitary group Tara used for its publicity. Passmore published an evangelical magazine with it. Like Paisley, McGrath and Alan Campbell, Passmore believed that the Protestants of Ireland were descendants of one of the lost tribes of Israel.

He was briefly a member of the Woodvale Defence Association in 1970s. It was set up by Alan Moon who was soon replaced by Charles Harding Smith who later became Chairman of the UDA. Passmore later became Chairman of the Woodvale Unionist Association. It supported the Ulster Workers Council (UWC) strike that brought down the 1974 power-sharing Government of 1974.

Passmore continued to serve as a JP and rose in the Orange Order despite his links to Charles Harding Smith of the UDA and William McGrath of Tara.

Roy Garland was a member of Tara but walked out of it in 1971 when he discovered that McGrath was abusing boys. He immediately began trying to put a stop to it by telling the Orange Order of which McGrath was a senior member. Passmore was one of those who blocked the taking of any action against McGrath. He may have done this for any one of three reasons: first, because he wanted to protect a fellow child abuser; second, because he was being blackmailed by MI5 and MI6 for whom McGrath was an agent; third, because by 1973 he had become an MI5/6 agent. Perhaps it was a combination of all of the foregoing. Roy Garland persisted in his efforts to put an end to McGrath’s abuses but met brick walls everywhere he turned.

In 1976, the IRA killed Passmore’s father in an attack which he claimed was aimed at him.

When Merlyn Rees was NI Secretary, MI5 smeared him and other Labour politicians as part of what they called Operation Clockwork Orange. One of the smears was that Rees was easy on Republican paramilitaries, especially his release of internees. Passmore was one of those who circulated this slur. On 3 December 1975 The Belfast Telegraph reported that ‘Mr. Thomas Passmore, said the fact that an ex-detainee had been killed while working with a bomb exposed the foolishness of Mr. Rees’ security policies…’

Passmore opposed the short-lived and unsuccessful 1977 United Unionist Action Council (UUAC) strike. It was led by Ian Paisley of the DUP and Ernie Baird, then leader of the United Ulster Unionist Movement (UUUM). The strike was disrupted by the release of an anonymous document which bears all the hallmarks of an MI5 dirty trick. It portrayed some of the UUAC leaders as homosexuals, something that was deemed reprehensible in Loyalist circles at that time. On 23 April, 1977, Passmore launched a verbal attack on the strike which was due to commence in early May. One of his allegations was that a member of the UUAC had been involved in discussions with the IRA. A question that now arises is this: did Passmore oppose the strike of his own volition or because he was blackmailed into opposing it by MI5 officers because they knew he was a paedophile? Indeed, might he already have been an MI5 agent? One thing is certain: whatever McGrath knew about him, MI5 knew about him too. By 1977 many of those involved in the paedophile ring which swirled around McGrath were MI5 agents, assets or blackmail victims. They included John McKeague, Alan Campbell and Joe Mains. There were others.

When a political trend involving ‘Ulster nationalism’ raised its head, McGrath – then still a powerful figure in Loyalist and Orange politics while also an MI5 agent – came out and opposed it. On 12 July 1978 the Belfast Telegraph reported that ‘Mr. Thomas Passmore, the Belfast Orange leader, said loyalists talking about Ulster nationalism were playing into their enemies’ hands’.   

Like McGrath, Passmore was not trusted by Loyalist paramilitaries. The UVF in particular believed McGrath was an MI5 agent.

In 1982 Passmore was elected to the Northern Ireland Assembly representing Belfast West.

Passmore’s interest in boys was no secret in Northern Ireland. In the 1980s the Northern Ireland writer and Kincora whistle-blower Robin Bryans told Colin Wallace and Fred Holroyd that Passmore was a child abuser. Bryans was a cousin of John Bryans, the Grand Master of the Orange Order.

Passmore died in 1989.

218. The Hart Inquiry Was Not Interested in Thomas Passmore.

An account of the sexual abuse of Paul Graham first appeared in print in The Examiner in 2013, although it did not to mention Passmore by name. The article, ‘The Hell of Bethany House, One Man’s Story’ by Danielle McGrane, can be found at https://www.irishexaminer.com/lifestyle/features/the-hell-of-bethany-house-one-mans-story-238365.html

As noted earlier, Bethany House was a children’s home in Dublin from where Paul Graham was adopted by Edith and William Graham who lived in Belfast. Passmore worked for Mrs Graham at her flower shop. In the piece Graham described Passmore as ‘a strong Protestant’ who went ‘to his church every day, but that didn’t stop him doing what he did to me’.

Colin Wallace discovered that Passmore was the abuser and tried to interest the Hart Inquiry into historical sex abuse in the Belfast part of Graham’s story. Wallace wrote to them on 27 October 2016, and received a puzzling reply on 2 November. When he wrote them again on 7 November, he started by pointing out that the Inquiry’s response indicated that ‘either I did not make myself very clear, or your Inquiry did not read my letter very carefully’. This was because the Inquiry had replied stating that: ‘You will appreciate that allegations in respect of the Bethany Home, which was in Dublin, fall outside our Terms of Reference and therefore cannot be considered by this Inquiry.’

Wallace proceeded to state that:

I fully understand that, but I did not refer to any allegations involving the Bethany Home. My letter referred to a former resident of that Home, Paul Graham … who claims that he was sexually abused by Thomas Passmore after he left the Home and had been adopted by Edith and William Graham who lived in Belfast. It is further claimed in the press that at the time of the alleged offences, Thomas Passmore worked in a ‘flower shop’ run by Paul Graham’s adopted mother. It should be clear from the foregoing that I was referring to sexual offences that (a) occurred after Paul Graham left Bethany House and (b) that the offences took place in Belfast.

What I attempted to highlight in my previous letter was that in my earlier submissions to you there exists credible evidence that, in the 1970s when Roy Garland was attempting to get the Orange Order to take action on his allegations relating to William McGrath’s activities, at least two of the most senior figures in the Orange Order had themselves, it is claimed, a track record of unlawful sexual activity. Clearly, if those allegations are true, there could have been a serious conflict of interest within the Orange Order leadership, and that could account for (but not justify) why the Orange Order appeared to be less than enthusiastic about dealing with Roy Garland’s allegations. Had Roy Garland’s allegations been acted upon at that time, it is likely that years of sexual abuse of children could have been avoided. The thrust of my previous letter was, therefore, to highlight just one of a number of possible reasons why no action was taken against William McGrath until 1980.

You will, of course, recall that Thomas Passmore was one of the individuals named in my 1973 press briefing document on McGrath and Tara as being ‘aware of’ McGrath’s activities.

As a separate issue, I feel the PSNI should investigate Paul Graham’s allegations, if only to bring some form of closure to the issue. I accept, of course, that this is not part of your Inquiry’s remit.

The Hart Inquiry did not look at the case of Thomas Passmore.

Dr Niall Meehan of Griffith College has conducted extensive research into the abuse of children, especially those at Bethany House. He was the first person to reveal in print that Passmore was a paedophile. He did so in The Belfast Telegraph in February 2017. The Orange Order declined to comment on the claim that Passmore was Paul Graham’s abuser.

219. Wallace writes to Britain’s Cabinet Secretary.

On 1 November 2022, Wallace submitted a written complaint by recorded delivery to the Cabinet Secretary. It was delivered to the Cabinet Office 4 November. It concerned the content of King’s ‘SECRET’ 1989 report.

There has been no acknowledgement of receipt of the letter. It follows that there has been no response to it either.

220.  The Dublin and Monaghan bomb files are still being withheld.

The British government has steadfastly refused to share its files on the 1974 bombings with the Irish government despite being asked for them decades ago.

221. Ignoring the Supreme Court.

The British government has persistently rebuffed court recommendations to inquire into the Patrick Finucane assassination. 

When David Cameron was in 10 Downing Street he told the Finucane family that he could not order a public inquiry into the scandal. When Finucane’s brother Martin asked him why, he turned to Mrs Finucane and said: ‘Look, the last administration couldn’t deliver an inquiry in your husband’s case and neither can we’. According to Cameron this was because ‘there are people all around this place, [10 Downing Street], who won’t let it happen’. As he was saying this, he raised a finger and made a circular motion in the air.

222.  The BBC fails to broadcast a programme on the murder of Brian McDermott by Alan Campbell, a member of the Kincora child rape gang.

On 25 February 2016, Dame Janet Smith published a 700-page report into sexual abuses by Jimmy Savile at the BBC.  ‘The culture of the BBC enabled Savile to go undetected for decades and that the BBC missed at least five opportunities to stop the abuse,’ she wrote. BBC staff members were aware of complaints against Savile, but did not pass the information to senior management due to the ‘culture of not complaining’. Dame Janet described an ‘atmosphere of fear’ which was still evident at the BBC. Some of those interviewed by her did so only after being assured their names would not be published, as they feared reprisal.

Sadly, little has changed inside the BBC. In 2021, it was due to broadcast a programme about Alan Campbell, the paedophile serial killer and member of Tara. The Corporation in Belfast commissioned an investigation into the disappearance of several young boys during the late ‘60s and early ‘70s.  The programme makers discovered potential new links between their disappearance and a number of suspected paedophiles in East Belfast. One of those featured was Alan Campbell, who had been arrested for sexually assaulting a boy in the early 70s. 

They also uncovered new information about the cover-up of the abuses at Kincora.  The programme’s sources included several former police officers who believed their enquiries had been thwarted by MI5. 

The programme was scheduled for broadcast on Sunday 9 May 2021, at 10.30 p.m., but some BBC managers reviewed and pulled it. They were shocked by its content, particularly by evidence of MI5’s involvement in covering up the Kincora saga. The basis upon which the programme was halted was that the Hart Report of 2017 did not implicate MI5 in Kincora wrongdoing. The fact that the Hart report contained a litany of mistakes did not have had any bearing on the managers at the BBC.

One section of the programme reviewed Campbell’s sexual assault of a resident from Bawnmore. It had taken place at the home of another paedophile, Ken Larmour (1A Ross House, Shore Road, Belfast) on 3 November 1970.  Larmour was a former social worker who at the time of the assault by Campbell was Clerk to Belfast Magistrates Court.  The victim was later transferred to Kincora where he was sexually assaulted by William McGrath. Larmour’s flat was used by local paedophiles, including the staff from Kincora. 

Campbell was put on trial at the court where Larmour was the Clerk.  Campbell was acquitted on the basis of perjured evidence and the case file later disappeared.

Campbell was suspected by the RUC of having been involved in the death of Brian McDermott on 2 September 1973.  The BBC programme uncovered new information about his murder.

223.  Child abuse continued.  

Kincora was a small part of a much wider network. RUC sources disclosed to journalists that the real fear in Westminster was that the public would realise that the Kincora scandal extended all the way to London. Sadly, the truth was suppressed and rampant child abuse continued for decades. Had the full truth emerged, the likes of Sir Cyril Smith and Jimmy Saville and many others might have emerged in the early 1970s.

224. Collusive murder continued after Tom King’s 1989 recommendation to Margaret Thatcher.

1989 was the year Tom King suggested to Margaret Thatcher that the Calcutt Inquiry would not look at the issue of ‘assassinations’.

This ensured that collusion continued unimpeded.

In January 2022, Marie Anderson, the Police Ombudsman for NI, produced her Operation Greenwich report. It concerned the activities of North West UDA/UFF. It revealed that there was evidence of ‘collusive behaviour’ by RUC officers in the murder of 19 people and attempted murder of two others over a four-year period between 1989-1993.

A month later she produced her Operation Achille report stating that ‘collusive behaviours’ involving the RUC and Loyalist murder gangs were ‘systemic’. Operation Achille concrrned 11 murders by the UDA/UFF in south Belfast.

The collusive murders included the killing of five people at the Sean Graham bookmakers in February 1992.

Anderson also highlighted failures to warn two men that their lives were under threat.

There had been an unjustifiable and continued use by RUC special branch of informants involved in serious criminality, including murder and the passive ‘turning a blind eye’ to such activities.

Anderson also revealed that officials from her office have identified eight UDA/UFF members linked through intelligence to the murders and attempted murders of 27 people.

The RUC’s special branch worked hand-in-glove with MI5.

The D-G of MI5 in 1989 was Sir Patrick Walker. He was D-G, 1988-92. He was succeeded by Stella Rimington, 1992-96. She had served as one of Walker’s two deputy D-Gs since 1990.

225.  The Irish ‘are all liars’.

On 10 October 1975, the then newly elected leader of the Tory Party, Margaret Thatcher, addressed the Conservative Party Conference at the Winter Gardens, Blackpool thus:

The first duty of Government is to uphold the law. If it tries to bob and weave and duck around that duty when it’s inconvenient, if Government does that, then so will the governed, and then nothing is safe – not home, not liberty, not life itself.

Sadly, Thatcher did not live up to these high standards.

There is a celebrated scene in the satirical TV programme, Spitting Image. Thatcher is dining with her cabinet. A waiter asks her what she will have to eat. She places her order. The waiter then asks her what about the ‘vegetables’. She looks around at colleagues and says they will have the same. At the time, Thatcher was in total control of her party. The old adage that power corrupts and absolute power corrupts absolutely is apt. She started out with good intentions – as her speech at the Winter Gardens indicates – but ended up covering-up for paedophile networks that drove children to suicide. She also covered-up for Alan Campbell who murdered Brian McDermott and probably four other boys.

Her treatment of Colin Wallace was reprehensible.

Thatcher may very well be the ‘Cabinet level’ authority for the murder of Patrick Finucane by MI5-RUC special branch agents in Belfast. Who else would have dared to order his assassination behind her back?

Yet, till the end, Margaret Thatcher saw herself a paragon of virtue. In 1999 she told Peter Mandelson MP of the Labour Party that the Irish were ‘all liars’ and not to be trusted.

She came up to me [on the day of my appointment as Secretary of State for NI by PM Tony Blair] and she said, ‘I’ve got one thing to say to you, my boy … you can’t trust the Irish, they are all liars’. she said, ‘liars, and that’s what you have to remember, so just don’t forget it. With that she waltzed off and that was my only personal exposure to her.

[1] Interested readers may care to read Anne Cadwallader’s book Lethal Allies and Margaret Urwin’s State in Denial for a comprehensive overview of these collusive links.

[2] Hart paragraph 603.

[3] HIA Inquiry Report – Volume 9 (Part 2).  Summary of Conclusions.

---

David Burke is the author of three books published by Mercier Press: –

‘Deception & Lies, the Hidden History of the Arms Crisis 1970’, and;

‘Kitson’s Irish War, Mastermind of the Dirty War in Ireland’  which examines the role of counter-insurgency dirty tricks in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s, and;

‘An Enemy of the Crown, the British Secret Service Campaign against Charles Haughey’, which was published on 30 September 2022.

These books can be purchased here: 

https://www.mercierpress.ie/irish-books/kitson-s-irish-war/

https://www.mercierpress.ie/irish-books/an-enemy-of-the-crown/

https://www.mercierpress.ie/irish-books/deception-and-lies