1. A David and Goliath battle involving the survivor of child rape.
The Kincora Boys’ Home child sex abuse scandal has tarnished, if not demolished, the reputations of an array of people, including politicians, who have tried to cover it up. (See section 8 below.) Some of them will be remembered by history for nothing more than that they deceived the public with lies and misled parliament to protect a seedy paedophile ring, and did so at the taxpayers’ expense.
Richard Kerr is taking a legal action against the Northern Ireland state for the sexual abuse he suffered, as a child, at Williamson House and, as a teenager, at Kincora Boys’ Home. He was also abused in Britain and on the Continent.
The Kerr case will test the mettle of the new Secretary of State for NI, Hilary Benn.
The Kerr case has been delayed – repeatedly – by the various institutions of NI state who stand as defendants in the action. This has been the cause of enormous frustration for Kerr.
Brian Gemmell, a key witness in the case, passed away in 2022. He had agreed to testify on behalf of Kerr. Gemmell served as a captain in military intelligence in the 1970s, and reported to Ian Cameron of MI5 about events related to Kincora. (see section 8 for more detail.)
Kerr was first raped as a very young child in the late 1960s, as he clung to a soft toy in his bed at Williamson House. This was the start of an ordeal which lasted for decades.
Keir Starmer, Hilary Benn and their cabinet colleagues are now in charge of the conduct of that defence. It is they who issue instructions to the lawyers, not the other way around.
There are compelling reasons why Starmer and Benn should intervene and direct Whitehall to disclose the full truth about Kincora to their lawyers and enable them to deal with the case in an honourable manner.
Will Benn do his best to establish the truth or turn a blind eye to it, and instruct the state’s legal team to fight and crush Kerr?
Will he allow them to portray Kerr as a liar when he is patently telling the truth?
Gary Hoy, another Kincora survivor, has a case which is due to be heard within the next year as well.
2. The photos from Venice
The photograph of Richard Kerr – reproduced below – was taken in Venice in 1977 while Kerr was meant to have been a resident at Kincora Boys’ Home in Belfast.
The NI state would have you believe that the only abuse suffered by the boys from Kincora was that perpetrated by the staff at the home.
The Venice photographs prove that Kincora was part of a far wider paedophile ring. Kerr was raped by Roy Cohn, the infamous New York lawyer, while in Venice. Cohn was once Donald Trump’s chief legal adviser.
By implication, all of the inquiries into Kincora spanning 1980-2022, would have you believe that Kerr was in Belfast when the Venice pictures were shot.
Recent research has pinpointed the address of the house in front of which Kerr stood in 1977, San Marco 3396. The resident of Number 3396 was not involved in the paedophile ring. (It was nothing more than a coincidence that Kerr stood in front of the property for the picture.)
For more details about the Venice scandal, see this article which appears on this website: Judge a king by his courtiers. Jeffrey Epstein was a sexual blackmailer. Roy Cohn was one too. Both men raped children. Cohn was Donald Trump’s mentor. Trump still sings his praises. Epstein was also a friend of Trump. Cohn and Epstein may have been part of the same blackmail network. By David Burke.
3. An MI5 and MI6 honeytrap.
No one disputes the fact that Kerr was sexually abused while a teenager at Kincora.
The cover-up relates to MI5 and MI6’s exploitation and manipulation of the wider paedophile ring that swirled around Kincora.
The home was a part of a complex network that involved other homes and overlapped with rings in Britain and the US. The US link undoubtedly involved Dr Morris Fraser, a psychiatrist who worked in Belfast and New York. Fraser is still alive.
The youngest victims of the ring were six years of age. They were provided to the network by Eric Witchell who worked at Williamson House. Boys as young as six suffered anal rape.
Witchell was a cruel, sadistic and violent man.
Witchell is alive and lives in London. He is not on any sex register and is ignored by the police. He resides in a basement flat near a school.
Some of the boys at Williamson House committed suicide.
In recent years Witchell has provided a counselling service to young people.
He has accused Richard Kerr of lying about Williamson House.
Witchell was a close friend of Joe Mains who ran Kincora.
Kincora was run as a ‘honeytrap’ by British intelligence. MI5 (which is attached to the Home Office and has responsibility for internal UK security) and MI6 (attached to the Foreign Office with responsibility for overseas intelligence) were both involved. (MI6 became involved in the ‘internal’ affairs of Northern Ireland as the Troubles were linked to the Republic and also involved international gun running).
Eric Witchell transferred boys who had been repeatedly raped – and broken – at Williamson House to Joe Mains at Kincora.
An extensive account of the Kincora scandal can be found on this website, especially here: Operation Clockwork Orange Vol 1 of Covert History Ireland’s ebook.
4. Hilary Benn, will Northern Ireland corrupt him too?
A lot is expected from Hilary Benn who is seen as a cut above the average British politician sent by London to the North. He is viewed as a sensible and mature individual, one who reached the cabinet table with his moral compass still intact.
Alas, in the morass of NI, a moral compass has rarely proven effective against the hypnotic powers of the cliques at the NIO who control the intelligence apparatus there.
John Stalker, the Deputy Chief Constable of Manchester, (who inquired into an RUC shoot to kill programme of the early 1980s) maintained his honour but was destroyed by MI5. See: Shooting to kill?
Lord Stevens (who inquired into MI5-RUC-UDA-UVF collusion) managed to preserve his dignity too.
Most of the others let themselves down, some badly. The latter category includes Lord Chief Justice Widgery who produced the first Bloody Sunday report.
An array of MI5, MI6 and MoD officials have striven to conceal what happened at Kincora for over five decades. They have done so to preserve the reputation of Britain’s espionage services who exploited it and other homes to acquire ‘kompromat’ on Loyalist politicians such as Sir Knox Cunningham, James Molyneaux, Enoch Powell, the ‘Wife Beater’ and others. Loyalist paramilitaries were also ensnared. The latter included John McKeague, leader of the Red Hand Commando.
Time will tell if Benn is capable of delivering the truth and justice or will be kowtowed by MI5.
5. Other scandals.
The forthcoming case involving Richard Kerr is not the only scandal that MI5 is desperate to cover up. Hilary Benn is in a position to thwart them.
If the ‘securiocrats’ remain true to form – and there is no reason to suspect they have undergone a Damascene conversion – they are now busy trying to figure out the best way to pickpocket Hilary Benn’s still intact moral compass.
MI5 wants to bury the truth about the Glenanne Gang, the group that bombed Dublin in 1974, and perpetrated multiple additional murders. It was led by two British agents, Billy Hanna and Robin Jackson. The Dublin government has repeatedly asked London for their files on the bombings only to be rebuffed time after time. The prospect that Benn will be able to secure their release and delivery to Dublin, is remote.
While Benn should not interfere with the police officers presently probing the Glenanne Gang as part of ‘Operation Denton’, he can – and should – direct MI5 and the PSNI to surrender all of the relevant files to Operation Denton.
MI5 recently admitted that it failed to furnish all of the files it held relating to Frederick Scappaticci to Operation Kenova.
The conclusions of ‘Operation Denton’ can probably be predicted at this point in time: MI5 and the RUC will be cleared of wrongdoing. It will report that there was a degree of collusion, but at a very low level, i.e., between some members of the UVF who also happened to be in the Ulster Defence Regiment.
Some of the officers from the ‘Operation Denton’ team have described themselves as the ‘official cover-up’ to one of the individuals they interviewed. The comment was undoubtedly intended as a joke but was hardly funny. It may reveal an element of disdain for the victims of the UVF gang.
The recently announced judicial inquiry into the murder of Patrick Finucane will be neutered before it starts. Based on past experience, this will be achieved by the concealment of files and the infiltration of people with a secret agenda into the tribunal. We can also expect perjury on an industrial scale by state witnesses. Crucially, key witnesses have died and more will have passed away by the time the cross examination of witnesses commences.
6. Keir Starmer, an ally of MI5.
If Benn is stonewalled by his officials, he may go to PM Keir Starmer to ask him for help in releasing MI5’s grip on the files. If he does, it is likely Starmer will offer no more than soothing words for he has protected MI5 in the past.
Starmer, as head of the Crown Prosecution Service, 2008-13, chose not to prosecute MI5 for its role in the torture of Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian national and UK resident. He had been brutalised with the knowledge of MI5, in Morocco, under the auspices of the US’s extraordinary rendition programme, before being incarcerated at Guantanamo Bay, 2004-09.
This ‘delighted’ Jonathan Evans, the D-G of MI5 at the time.
Starmer went on to attend MI5’s leaving party for Evans on 16 April 2013.
7. Subtle sexual blackmail
While it is safe to assume Benn has no desire to conceal the truth about crimes from the past involving MI5 and the RUC’s special branch, there are many in the Labour Party who have no desire to take on MI5 and will him offer no support.
British political parties fear MI5 deeply. The service is in a position to cause havoc for them. Supporters of Jeremy Corbyn are convinced MI5 was part of a plot to portray Corbyn as a former agent of the Czech secret service. Absurd and malicious as that smear was, it became a contributing factor in Corbyn’s downfall. (The Czech smear campaign certainly involved right wing elements in the British media close to the Tory Party.)
MI5 still collects information about the illicit sex lives of British politicians. It justifies this on the basis that it needs to be able to vet them in a comprehensive fashion in the event they are nominated for senior government positions. It maintains that it does so to deny Russian, Chinese, and other hostile powers, the opportunity to blackmail politicians who might otherwise ascend to lofty government positions.
GCHQ has the capacity to listen to politicians’ phones and monitor their internet behaviour. This has a chilling effect on politicians with secrets to hide. No one knows for sure whether or not their communications are being monitored.
The House of Commons has more than its share of sex pests as the leak of the Westminster ‘dirty dossier’ a number of years ago demonstrated.
MI5 does not have to confront British politicians with details of their personal turpitude – a hint here or there is presumably more than enough to keep them in line.
Some sex pest MPs might simply be paranoid about MI5 and GCHQ when, in reality, neither organisation is monitoring their drunken behaviour, visits to escorts or porn sites at all.
How many of Benn’s cabinet colleagues have secrets to hide?
Is the viral rumour that one of them – a household name – has a mistress (also a politician) and a child, true? MI5 certainly knows the answer to that question.
The fear of the hidden hand of MI5 is likely to suppress the appetite among those in the Labour Party who might otherwise want to reveal the truth about dirty tricks in Northern Ireland. Hilary Benn, who has a reputation which is above reproach, may find it difficult to attract support and rally the necessary political willpower from his colleagues, if he embarks down along that road.
8. The Curse of Kincora – a litany of lies and reputations in tatters.
The Kincora scandal is like a contagious disease, infecting the integrity of many of those sent to investigate it.
The truth was first suppressed by an RUC officer called George Caskey. He led a series of inquiries into Kincora, 1980-82. He quickly discovered the truth about state involvement. Curiously, he leaked some facts to Chris Moore, an investigative reporter with the BBC. Why Caskey did this is a mystery. There are two possibilities. First, a modicum of decency prevailed because he was disgusted at what he was being required to do. Second, he was acting on orders from his superiors to let MI5 know that they – the RUC – had the goods on them and that this was a taste of what might happen if they tried to blame the RUC special branch for what had happened. Moore discovered that Peter England, a senior NIO official, was directly involved in the rape of at least one boy ensnared in the paedophile ring that swirled around Kincora.
Caskey’s team was selective and manipulative in the statements they took from Kincora victims. They also engaged in the forgery of a statement in the name of Michael Taylor who had seen a report on Kincora while working at the military intelligence wing at British Army HQ Lisburn in the 1970s. (This issue is covered in the Clockwork Orange series of articles.)
Chris Moore is about to publish a second book on Kincora. It will show how another RUC officer knew all about the scandal while it was in progress yet was prevented from stopping the sexual violence. Moore’s book will also describe how senior managers at the BBC acted corruptly to cover the story up.
The first ‘external’ inquiry was conducted by Sir George Terry of the Sussex Police in 1982. He was the first choice of Sir John Hermon to conduct a review of the RUC’s behaviour. Hermon served as RUC chief constable, 1980-89.
Terry submitted a report which claimed that he had received the full co-operation of the Ministry of Defence (MoD). This was a falsehood of which Terry was fully conscious. Some of the Sussex police officers under Terry approached the MoD to speak to Ian Cameron of MI5. (They went to the MoD as this was where Cameron was ostensibly assigned at the time.) In reality, Cameron was a senior MI5 officer who had ordered Capt. Brian Gemmell of Military Intelligence to halt his inquiries into the scandal. The MoD refused to give the Terry inquiry access to Cameron. In his report, Terry claimed he had received the full co-operation of everyone he and his team had approached.
Terry also blamed the boys for the abuse they had suffered claiming they had enjoyed it. See: According to the report by Sir George Terry, children at Kincora derived “sexual satisfaction or pleasure” from being raped. By David Burke.
Many lives were destroyed both before and after the abuse at Kincora was exposed. The wider wing was protected and more lives were devastated.
At least five victims committed suicide. Many more died from drug and alcohol addiction caused by posttraumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety.
The Terry Report – which is now an egregious embarrassment to the RUC/PSNI and NIO – has allegedly disappeared. However, readers of this website can read it here: The deceitful Terry Report into Kincora.
Judge Terry Hughes was asked to inquire into the scandal after the Terry Report had failed to allay public concern that the state was innocent of involvement in the scandal.
James Prior MP, one of Hilary Benn’s predecessors as Secretary of State for NI, announced publicly that Hughes would inquire into MI5 and MI6 involvement in the scandal. After the announcement was made, Prior secretly changed the terms of reference.
Judge Hughes published his report in 1984 without protesting about the change in the terms of reference.
In more recent years, Sir Anthony Hart, a retired NI judge, inquired into the scandal.
Hart – who presumably knew the difference between Belfast and Venice – accused Kerr of being a liar.
The Hart Report has become a byword for laziness, negligence, lies and confirmation bias. See, e.g., The Harte Report is full of errors. I know because of the lies it contains about me. By Roy Garland.
Despite years of criticism of the Hart report – and with only one exception – no one has stepped forward to defend Hart. (See below.)
Harte’s mendacious reaction to a de facto confession, made by MI6, about Kincora, is probably the most astonishing and deceitful betrayal of trust since the Widgery report of 1972. In 1980, MI5 carried out an inquiry into the conduct of the former Chief of MI6, Sir Maurice Oldfield, 1973-78. 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.
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.
Throughout his report, Hart refers to MI6 by its alternative acronym, SIS. MI6 and Oldfield were 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 Taylor, an Englishman who worked at the British Army HQ at Lisburn, where MI6 was based in the 1970s, recalls at least one visit to Belfast by Oldfield while he was Chief of MI6.
Hart failed to call Taylor 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 revealed 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’ between 1974 and 1979 be squared with Hart’s conclusion of none at all?
The dates here are sloppy. Oldfield served as Chief of MI6, 1973-78, not 1974-79. He was appointed as Security Co-ordinator NI in late 1979, and retired from that post in 1980. He definitely visited NI as security co-ordinator but the period 1979-80 does not fit Hart’s timeframe of ‘between 1974 and 1979’.
Hart’s report also cites the case of James Miller. Miller was a former British paratrooper who acted as an undercover MI5 agent in NI in the 1970s. One of Miller’s reports to MI5 in 1972 described William McGrath as an abuser. Hart stated that MI5 should have reported this to the RUC but did not.
Hart, however, did not bother to ask MI5 to account for this failure.
Instead, Hart developed the notion that MI5 had kept silent to protect Miller. Yet, Miller fled NI in 1974 when the UDA discovered he was an MI5 agent. Hart, who clearly did not read his brief, was not aware of this fact. 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?
Eric Witchell, the child rapist who ran Williamson House, is the only person who has defended the Hart report in public. There is an interview on Youtube during which he claims Kerr is a liar by reference to the judge’s report.
The men who carry the heaviest burden of guilt for the rape of the children ensnared by the Anglo-Irish vice ring are the directors-general of MI5, most particularly Sir Michael Hanley, Sir Howard Smyth and Sir Jack Jones.
Then there was the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA). It was set up to look at VIP sex abuse in 2014, especially that of MPs and royals. It issued a series of limp reports, the last of which emerged in 2022. It failed to inquire into Enoch Powell MP, James Molyneaux MP, Lord Louis Mountbatten and others. For details about Mountbatten’s links to the Anglo-Irish vice ring that included Kincora see: The Mountbatten dossier, an ebook by David Burke.
9. Colin Wallace.
No one has done more to reveal the truth about the Anglo-Irish Vice Ring than Colin Wallace. He will be a witness at Richard Kerr’s case when it finally gets going.
Wallace was a psychological operations officer based the at British Army’s HQ at Thiepval barracks, Lisburn, (HQNI) in the 1970s. Wallace knew about Kinocra and tried to alert the media. Dirty tricks were deployed in 1975 to oust Wallace from HQNI. Wallace had attempted to draw the media’s attention to a number of issues including the activities of William McGrath, the paedophile housefather at Kincora Boys’ Home. McGrath was a prolific and brutal child rapist.
During the summer of 1973 Wallace was instructed by his superiors ‘to brief the press unattributably’ about McGrath and the paramilitary group he commanded, Tara. This move had the added benefit of exposing the existence of the child abuse network in Northern Ireland of which McGrath was a member. Kincora was only one of a string of care homes which were compromised. The children at Williamson House, Bawnmore and elsewhere, were being preyed upon too.
Wallace could not call a public press conference to denounce McGrath as the military had to protect their confidential sources. Hence, Wallace circulated a press briefing in his normal discreet manner. It described how the ‘OC’ or Officer-in-Command of Tara was:
‘William MCGRATH. He is a known homosexual who has conned many people into membership [of Tara] by threatening them with revealing homosexual activities which he himself initiated. He is a prominent figure in Unionist Party politics and in the Orange Order.‘
Also, that McGrath:
‘uses a non-existent evangelical mission as a front for his homosexual activities and also runs a home for children on the 236 Upper Newtownards Road, Belfast (Tel: B’fast 657838).‘
The foregoing was the address and telephone number of Kincora Boys’ Home.
Jim Molyneaux MP was listed in the final paragraph of the briefing as one of a number of ‘people associated with McGRATH’ and who was ‘aware of his activities’.
A number of journalists have confirmed that they either saw the 1973 press sheet or received a briefing from Wallace about Tara based on the information that was contained in it.
On 13 March 1977, The Sunday Times published an article entitled: ‘The Army’s Secret War in Northern Ireland’ by David Blundy. It reported that at a British Army briefing in 1974:
‘at which a Sunday Times reporter was present attempts were made to link Paisley with the Protestant para-military group called Tara, a small, obscure and ineffective group as Ulster’s para-military organisations go. The Sunday Times has a copy of an Army intelligence summary on Tara which contains accurate details about its organisation. .. One member, which the summary names, is called a ‘homosexual and has conned many people into membership by threatening them with revealing homosexual activities which he had initiated.‘
The Sunday Times believed the purpose of the briefing was:
‘to link Paisley with homosexuals and Communist sympathisers. .. Our sources say that the army has produced three anonymous documents on this theme which circulated in Belfast.‘
Kevin Dowling of The Sunday Mirror was another of the journalists who saw it. He gave the Hart Inquiry ‘a copy of a telex he had sent to his editor in 1973’ as a result of information furnished to him by Wallace. The telex stated that ‘according to Mr. Wallace the CO [i.e. Commanding Officer] of Tara was William McGrath and a homosexual’ and that ‘McGrath apparently uses a non-existent evangelical mission as a front to entice young Protestant men into homosexuality. Once in they are potential blackmail victims and soldiers of Tara.’
In his 2017 Kincora report Judge Anthony Hart doubled over in contortions to undermine Wallace, yet he was not able to deny that Wallace had alerted the media to McGrath’s abuse of ‘young’ men in 1973. In other words, the document that refers to James Molyneaux’s knowledge of McGrath’s activities is recognised – officially – by the British state, as genuine.
The nadir of the Kincora scandal was the murder of five boys by members of the Kincora vice-ring. Alan Campbell is the chief suspect in the most high profile of those killings, that of Brian McDermott. See: Kincora’s Darkest Secret.
The reason Hart had to make this concession – despite his obstinate bias and determination not to find anything that might upset MI5 and the NIO – was because the evidence of its existence was overwhelming.
Wallace was also deeply concerned about the abduction and murder of Brian McDermott.
A ‘SECRET’ report dated 12 December 1989, has emerged from Britain’s National archives. It was written by Tom King, a Conservative MP, who served as Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, 1985-89, and as Defence Secretary, 1989-92. He is still alive. It reveals that Margaret Thatcher was a party to the cover-up of {i} child abuse and {ii} smear campaigns perpetrated against politicians elected to Westminster, Stormont (in Northern Ireland) and Dail Eireann (in the Republic of Ireland) {iii} ‘assassinations’ in Ireland.
The Northern Ireland Office (NIO) has denied for decades that MI5, MI6, and military intelligence ran a sectarian assassination campaign in collusion with Loyalist terrorist groups in Ireland. This lie has been exposed repeatedly in recent years, inter alia, by the fact the British government has handed over millions in compensation to the families of the victims of collusive murder. The survivors and relatives of the Miami Showband are perhaps the most high-profile of those compensated thus far. Members of the Miami showband were murdered in 1976 by a UVF gang directed by Captain Robert Nairac, an undercover British soldier. The British media has largely failed to report these settlements.
King’s ‘SECRET’ 1989 report refers specifically to the child sex abuse scandal involving Kincora Boys’ Home in Belfast.
There is a lot more information about these issues in the ‘Operation Clockwork Orange’ ebook featured on this website. The series exposes corruption on the part of an array of individuals including Sir Michael Hanley, D-G of MI5, 1972-78, Ian Cameron (MI5), Denis Payne (MI5).
In 2022, the Police Ombudsman of NI (PONI) released the latest report about the Kincora scandal. It 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, 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.
10. The vice ring had a fixer at Belfast’s magistrate’s Court.
Ken Larmour, a paedophile, was a clerk at Belfast’s magistrate’s Court. He abused that position to assist members of the vice ring.
Larmour was a close friend of Alan Campbell. They were so close that Larmour lent Campbell his flat at Ross House, Shore Road, Belfast, to abuse boys. Campbell abused a 13 year old boy from Bawnmore, a care home, at the flat. Other members of vice ring abused boys at the flat.
Larmour was also a member of McGrath’s Tara paramilitary organisation.
Although the RUC suspected he was a paedophile as early as 1971, he retained his job as a clerk at Belfast’s magistrate’s Court.
After Mountbatten was murdered by the IRA, Larmour spoke to JM, a boy he was abusing. JM has told me that: “Ken Larmour told me about Mountbatten’s death. He became tearful emotional, and said that he was very good to the kids at the homes in Belfast. Ken did not [usually] show emotion.”
Clearly, Mountbatten was not “very good to the kids at the homes”. Yet, the comment reveals that Mountbatten was given access to other care institutions and that this was common knowledge among the paedophile network in Northern Ireland.
JM recorded Larmour as an adult on tape confessing some of his crimes. The tape was furnished to the RUC. Ultimately, it was decided not to prosecute Larmour. One of the reasons stated was that the State could not afford to pay for a ticket for JM to fly to Belfast from the US.
11. The Prime Minister’s private secretary was a prolific paedophile.
The Anglo-Irish Vice Ring had friends in comparatively low places, such as Ken Larmour. It also had guardians at the pinnacle of British society. The latter kept them safe long after the Kincora scandal erupted into the public domain in January 1980. Their guardians included PM Margaret Thatcher, her Cabinet Secretary, Robert Armstrong, and the top brass at MI5.
Thatcher, born in 1925, grew up in a claustrophobic, sexually repressed, Methodist cocoon. She was dominated by her father, an austere puritanical Methodist. As an adult, she displayed psychopathic tendencies, lacked empathy and was a narcissist. As shall be demonstrated, she was not troubled by the fact some of those close to her raped children.
She was obviously told the truth about Kincora, and was happy to protect the wider ring after Mains, McGrath and Semple were sacrificed.
It is said that the only occasion on which she displayed fear at the despatch box in the House of Commons, was when Ken Livingstone MP of the Labour Party, questioned her about Kincora in the 1980s.
Thatcher protected – and promoted – Sir Peter Morrison MP, her private secretary, despite the fact she knew he was a prolific child abuser.
Morrison died from a heart attack on 13 July 1995, aged 51. Three years later, Nick Davies, an investigative journalist with The Guardian, reported that Morrison had received a caution for cottaging with underage boys in public lavatories. He was never charged for any of his crimes.
One of his more serious offences was the rape of a 14-year-old in 1982. The child was taken to Elm Guest House in London and escaped shortly after the assault. The crime was reported to Scotland Yard by the boy and his family within hours of his ordeal. He gave a statement and was examined by a doctor. A few months later Scotland Yard contacted the boy’s father and told him that the man had been sent to prison for the assault and that the matter was closed. Nothing of the sort had happened.
The boy and his family did not realise precisely how important Morrison was at the time. When they did, they made enquiries about him and discovered they had been duped by Scotland Yard. Morrison had not been charged, let alone sent to prison.
In October 2012, Rod Richards, a former MP and ex-leader of the Welsh Conservatives, implicated Morrison in the abuse in Wales. He maintained that between 1974 and 1990, approximately 650 children from forty children’s homes had been sexually, physically and emotionally abused. Morrison and another high-profile Conservative politician were implicated as regular visitors to the child care homes. One of the institutions he exploited was Bryn Estate care home in Wrexham, North Wales.
In July 2014, Thatcher’s former bodyguard, Barry Strevens, revealed he had told Thatcher that Morrison hosted sex parties at which under-age boys were abused. Strevens said that despite passing on the allegations to Thatcher, she later promoted Morrison to the position of deputy chairman of the Conservative party. Thatcher’s private secretary, Archie Hamilton, reportedly took notes of what was said at the encounter.
Norman Tebbit, a former Chairman of the Tory Party, has revealed that ‘rumours had got to my ears’ that Morrison was a paedophile more than a decade before the truth was exposed.
In 2002, Edwina Currie, the former Tory minister, published account in her diary reciting that he had been a ‘noted pederast’. She understood he regularly had sex with 16-year-old boys – whilst the legal age of consent at the time was 21.
Morrison might have become a cabinet minister had Thatcher not fallen from office in 1992.
The most senior officials in Whitehall knew about him too. On 4 November, 1986, Antony Duff, Director-General of MI5, 1985-88, wrote to Robert Armstrong, Cabinet Secretary, after allegations of child abuse had been made by separate sources against Morrison. At this juncture, Morrison was serving as Conservative MP for Chester and Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party. Duff opined that Morrison was only a minor ‘security danger’. The spymaster felt the MP did not have access to valuable government secrets. By this time, he had served Minister of State for Trade and Industry, Minister of State for Employment, and Lord Commissioner of HM Treasury. One would be forgiven for thinking that with a resume like that, he would have had access to plenty of economic secrets. Nonetheless, Duff concluded: ‘At present stage … the risk of political embarrassment to the Government is rather greater than the security danger’. There was no consideration of the ongoing risk posed by Morrison to children.
The reference to the ‘risk of political embarrassment’ implies an assumption that Morrison was not going to be reported to the police. If two senior officials were aware of child abuse, the word ‘risk’ should not have entered the equation. It should have been taken for granted that a report would be furnished to the police automatically.
After the Morrison memo came to light in July of 2015, Armstrong (famed for his use of the phrase ‘being economical with the truth’), defended his inaction thus: ‘Clearly, I was aware of it … but I was not concerned with the personal aspect of it, whether he should or should not be pursued. That was something for the police to consider. My concern was implications of national security and international relations.’
Morrison was never reported to the police by Duff or anyone in MI5 either. Clearly, MI5 did not believe his denial of wrongdoing because they rated him as a risk. Had they believed he was innocent, he would not have been susceptible to blackmail and hence could not have been perceived as a ‘security danger’, of any significance. Morrison went on to become Thatcher’s private secretary and would receive a knighthood. He had been one of one of the first backbench MPs to support her bid for the leadership of the Tories in 1975.
Morrison’s successful upward career trajectory could not have been sustained without the sanction of MI5 who vet all high-level political appointments.
12. Richard Kerr’s forthcoming High Court action in Belfast.
Some of the truth about this monumental scandal may emerge when Richard Kerr’s case is eventually heard by the High Court in Belfast, hopefully sooner rather than later.
As things stand, unless Hilary Benn gets to the bottom of what happened and instructs his lawyers appropriately, Kerr will have to rely upon the wisdom of the judge to achieve justice.
One sincerely hopes that the judge assigned to it will not be cut from the same cloth as the former Lord Chief Justice Widgery (author of the infamous Bloody Sunday report), Judge Hart or Judge Hughes.
Is it too much to hope for that there is a judge on the Northern bench without any skeletons in his or her closet and who is able to tell the difference between Venice, London and Belfast?
