Author Michael O’Connell has long had an interest in the Stalker affair. He had the opportunity of discussing it at length with John Stalker during a visit the latter made to Nottingham in 1989, after his retirement from the Manchester police. O’Connell had developed his own sources about the killing of the six civilians described in this article. One of the sources in now dead, the other still alive. O’Connell did not reveal their names to Stalker. Details of what he learnt from them are included in this article.
Introduction.
In 1982 the top secret sections of the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) were grouped into five offices in Northern Ireland. One of the groups was Echo Four – E4. One of E4’s special tasks was close surveillance of individuals who were targeted for special observation.
A particular section within that group had prime responsibility for such operations; this section was known as the Technical Support Unit, Echo 4 Alpha – E4A. The unit comprised serving RUC officers under the command of a Special Branch inspector. Members of the group almost always operated in civilian clothes rather than in police uniform.
E4A operated closely with two SSUs – sometimes referred to as Headquarters Mobile Support Units – to which it passed intelligence gathered in the course of its own operations. The SSUs operated in unmarked vehicles, known as ‘Q cars’. There were about 48 members in total in the two groups. All were members of the police service, but many were former soldiers in the British army who had served both in Northern Ireland and elsewhere. All were volunteers who had been specially selected for the units. They were trained by the SAS.
All this begs the question: When and by whom was it decided on policy grounds that the State should abandon the traditional police concept of the use of minimum force and replace it with the use of maximum and lethal force?
The hallmark of their training was ‘firepower, speed and aggression’. They were trained to put people permanently out of action, rather than incapacitate them and take them alive. They were issued with rapid fire weapons which were not standard use weapons in the RUC. One wonders whether any of them shared the view expressed in October 1984 by Mrs Margaret Thatcher, shortly after the bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton by the IRA on 12 October 1984 that ‘Those who go out to take the lives of others forfeit their own right to live’.
Part I
The shooting of Gervaise Kerr, Eugene Toman and Seán Burns.
The existence of these Special Support Units first became public knowledge in the case of the shooting dead of three men, Eugene Toman, aged 21, Gervaise McKerr, aged 31 and Seán Burns, aged 21, on 11 November 1982 on the Tullgally East Road near Lurgan, County Armagh. An informer had told the RUC they were responsible for the bomb explosion some two weeks earlier that killed three RUC officers travelling in an armoured car along the Kinnego embankment on 27th October near Lurgan.
One of the deceased men was Sergeant Sean Quinn, a 37 year old Catholic father of three children. The second was Constable Alan McCloy, aged 34. Two children lost their father on his death. The third officer was 26 year old Constable Paul Hamilton. He had been married for only four weeks.
They had been lured into a trap by a telephone call, allegedly from a farmer complaining that a thief had stolen a battery from his tractor. He had made that call under duress and no such theft had taken place. The area to which the officers was called was said to be ‘out of bounds’ and dangerous to police officers and they required special permission to enter the area. Some may find it surprising that this permission was given for what appears on the face of it to be a minor criminal offence.
The drive and determination on the part of the police and the army to arrest and imprison the killers of the three officers was immense, but it must have been readily apparent there is an inherent danger in relying upon the word of a paid informer. It is seldom possible to accurately verify such information; it may or may not be true. The exact detail of the crime might be established, but the true identity of the perpetrator is not – he or she might be implicated by the informer acting out of ignorance or malice. What evidential standard should be applied by the police in such circumstances? Is it beyond reasonable doubt or is on the balance of probabilities? Or does it matter?
It is my view however that the informer, who was paid £20,000, a considerable sum in 1982, was the double agent, Britain’s top spy in the Provisional Irish Republican Army, (PIRA), Freddie Scappaticci, known as ‘Stakeknife’. He was operating at the very top of the PIRA enforcement team, and may have been responsible for at least 20 murders himself. He was described as ‘the jewel in the crown of British Intelligence’.[1] He is now deceased.
Whatever may be the answer to these questions posed above, it is a fact that Eugene Toman, Gervaise Kerr and Sean Burns were shot dead by a number of RUC officers whilst in a green Ford Escort car owned by Gervaise Kerr.
The officers, who apparently originally claimed in interview that they were on an ordinary police patrol, said the driver of the car refused to stop at a police checkpoint. Witnesses at the scene alleged there was no checkpoint manned by the police as they claimed. There were allegations that some 40 bullet holes were found in around the driver’s door, and that the driver, Gervais McKerr, had suffered devastating injuries. It would have been quite impossible for him to have continued to drive between 250 and 300 yards along the winding carriageway that being the approximate distance between the alleged roadblock and the point where his car came to rest.[2]
It was later admitted that the three officers were in fact members of the Special Support Group, E4A, with their special training in ‘firepower, speed and aggression’. That was the phrase used by the senior deputy chief constable of the RUC when he gave evidence at the subsequent criminal trial. According to a report in the Irish News that officer told the trial judge, Lord Justice Gibson, that the officers were trained on the basis that, once having decided to open fire, to shoot to take out the enemy. Lord justice Gibson asked the witness “do you mean permanently out of action?” The reply was “yes”. In other words, ‘shoot to kill’.
It is believed they were operating at that time under the control of the Special Branch of the RUC. They lied when they said they were on patrol. They were not, They were tailing the three deceased for some 3 days. There was allegedly a car chase. The police opened fire on the fleeing vehicle, firing some 109 times. All three occupants of the car were killed without returning fire. They were incapable of doing so because they were unarmed. The police claimed they were fired upon by the occupants of the car; that claim simply claim cannot be true.
The State pathologist, Professor Thomas Marshall, was of the opinion that Eugene Toman had been shot in the back for when he was found at the scene, he was half in and half out of the car, on the passenger side of the vehicle. If that is correct, does it follow that he was alive when the car came to a halt and he had been shot when he presented no real or apparent danger to the police officers or anyone else.
Subsequently, consideration was given by the authorities to prosecuting the three police officers. That was resisted by the RUC Chief Constable, Sir John Hermon, whose view was they would not be convicted. He was right.
The Director of Public Prosecutions in Belfast, no doubt after consultation with the Attorney General in London, consented to a prosecution against three RUC officers for murder of Eugene Toman.
There were no charges in respect of the other two deceased men.
In the event in May and June 1984 the three officers appeared before Lord Justice Maurice Gibson, sitting without a jury in the so-called Diplock Court system. They pleaded not guilty. None of them gave evidence on oath, as they were quite entitled in law not to do. No inference of guilt can be drawn from the exercise of the right to in court silence. In one way or another it was apparently their defence that they were trailing the three men who they believed to be members of the PIRA, on the way to kill members of the security forces. I have found no evidence put before the court by anyone to support that belief, but my understanding is that it was based on what the informer told the RUC.
The original briefing after the killings from the RUC press office was somewhat short of the truth. According to research carried out by Amnesty International the police claimed at first that a police officer on foot, accompanied by another officer, had routinely attempted to stop the car while standing in the road and waving his torch. In response the car driver slowed then stop momentarily, then accelerated and drove away colliding with the police officer as it did so. Other police officers in an unmarked patrol car in the area saw what happened and started to pursue the other vehicle. These officers said during the pursuit they believed they were under fire from the occupants of the car and returned fire. When the fleeing car stopped and was inspected by the police they found the three occupants were dead. According to eyewitnesses at the scene both the police officers at the checkpoint along the road and the officers in the unmarked police car opened fire on the other vehicle.[3]
When it came to the evidence at the trial, prosecuting counsel alleged that the deceased men were under observation because it was believed they were on a mission to kill and therefore they were watched not by the regular RUC officers but by members of E4A. Counsel gave no details about the alleged targets whom the three allegedly intended to kill while on a mission to do so. Perhaps no one told him.
Spent shells were found over the area of the alleged car chase; some were found within 20 feet of the stationary vehicle, leading to the suspicion that the police had fired at the car after it stopped. That was denied by the RUC. Among the 109 shots fired, only about 80 spent shells were found in the area. Had someone cleaned up and contaminated the crime scene by removing relevant evidence?
The three officers claimed in interview, but not on oath in court since they did not give evidence, that they believed their lives were in danger and that their use of lethal force was justified in those circumstances. There was no mention by the defence concerning the police officer alleged to have been struck and injured by the fleeing car. That seemed not to matter in the slightest to the trial judge. Most would regard the officer as a material witness. Like other judges of similar ilk, Lord Justice Gibson did not wish to ask a question to which he did not want to know the answer.
Lord Justice Gibson acquitted all three officers. He criticised the Director of Public Prosecutions for bringing a case based on what he called such tenuous evidence. He said in the course of his judgment there was never the chance that the Crown could have hoped to secure a conviction. (He perhaps could have added the words “not in my Court anyway”). He said the three officers knew of a suspicion that the three deceased were on their way to commit murder. He gave no details about the ground of that suspicion or who was to be murdered. It was a probability, he thought, that they were armed and dangerous terrorists, who had let it be known they would not be arrested alive. I cannot find any evidence of this kind, upon which the judge relied, anywhere.
How could it be ‘probable’ that the victims were armed and dangerous terrorists when at the time of their death they were unarmed with any weapon of any kind? When and where had any one of the three ‘let it be known’ that they would not be arrested alive? Was that done in private or in public, and who witnessed it? Just how did it come to the attention of the trial judge?
One is entitled to ask the further question however: Is it wise, or even lawful, to start shooting at another person because there is a suspicion, and no more, that he or she was on the way to commit murder?
Lord Justice Gibson had not yet concluded his remarks. There were more words of criticism for the DPP. He said that those who brought the prosecution on such evidence undoubtedly did not take into account that these men’s personal security was at risk. He considered that the case is going to have a more widespread effect upon other members of the police and indeed the armed forces generally. When a policeman or soldier is ordered to arrest a dangerous criminal and in substance as in this case to bring him back dead or alive, how is he to consider his conduct now? May it not be that some may now ask: am I to risk my life carrying this order, knowing that if I survive my reward will be the further risk of life imprisonment as a murderer?
Even more public disquiet was caused when Lord Justice Gibson said “I wish to make it clear that, having regard to the entire Crown case, I regard each of the accused as absolutely blameless in this matter. That finding should be put on their record along with my own commendation as their courage and determination for bringing the three deceased men to justice in this case to the final Court of Justice”.
In response to this highly provocative statement the Republican newspaper An Phoblacht described Lord Justice Gibson as being thoroughly representative of the North’s colonial judiciary, a Unionist, bigoted and biased against Nationalists, who constantly used the law to prop up British rule in the six counties.[4]
Did the judge sign his own death warrant when he made that statement about bringing the three deceased men to the final court of justice.. Did his almost gloating over the three killings compromise his judicial independence? He should not have said that. It cost him not only his life, but that of his wife also.
Lord Justice Maurice Gibson and his wife, Lady Cecily Gibson, were murdered in a 500 lb bomb explosion by the Provisional PIRA about 8:30 in the evening of Saturday 25 April 1987, shortly after they crossed the border between the North and the South of Ireland, following a family holiday. They were survived by their two grieving children.
On 7th March 1993 Gervaise McKerr’s widow lodged an application with the European Court of Human Rights alleging various breaches of the Human Rights Act.
When she died their son Jonathan took over the application. On 4 May 2001 the Court unanimously found that there had been a failure to comply with the procedural obligations implied in Article 2 to investigate promptly and effectively a case where an individual had been killed as a result of the use of force.
Article 2 spells out a fundamental right to life, and by the jurisprudence of the of the Court, a fundamental right of the family of a person killed by agents of the State to demand that State must promptly and effectively investigate the circumstances in which the death occurred. The court decided that there had been a lack of independence of the investigation carried out by the RUC and a lack of public scrutiny and information to the victim’s family concerning the investigation carried out by British police officers. The court further considered that the State should have provided reasons for the failure to prosecute any police officer for attempting to pervert the course of justice. The British Government paid very little regard to that judgment of the court.
Hugh Jordan is the father of Patrick Pearse Jordan who was shot dead by an officer in E4A on 25 November 1992. Hugh Jordan sought a judicial review in the case in Belfast. On 14 January 2014, the presiding judge, Mr Justice Stephens, handed down his ruling. It was alleged that the deceased had been killed by an officer of the E4A unit while he was running away from a stolen car in Belfast.[5] He was unarmed at the time of his death. Mr Justice Stephens was examining the modus operandi of that Special Support Unit.
The judge related, with reference to the deaths of McKerr, Toman and Burns, that the ‘Police opened fire on the fleeing vehicle and a chase ensued involving police officers who were members of a uniformed unit within Special Branch called the Special Support Unit (since renamed as Headquarters Mobile Support Unit). During the pursuit the SSU officers discharged further shots at the vehicle, which failed to negotiate a slip road and crashed into a grass bank. SSU officers again opened fire on the suspect vehicle. All three occupants … were shot dead. No firearms, explosives or other materials of significance were discovered in the vehicle.’
The judgment continues: ‘Following the shooting [McKerr, Toman and Burns], the SSU Officers involved, together with other members of the unit, including Officer V [in the Jordan inquest] who was the head of the unit, took part in a debriefing prior to their interviews with the CID Officers tasked to investigate the shootings. At that debriefing, senior Officers required the SSU Officers involved not to disclose the involvement of Special Branch or the fact that the interception of the suspect vehicle had been a planned operation. Alternative explanations for the involvement of the police at the scene were suggested by those senior officers. All the officers involved made false statements in accordance with the cover story.’
Officer V was at the relevant time the head of the Special Support Unit which was an operational arm of Special Branch. He briefed the Special Support Unit officers involved in the operation prior to deployment and was present at a subsequent debriefing of the officers involved when those officers were advised that they were not at liberty to disclose Special Branch involvement or that the operation was pre planned. This is surely an indication that the calculated concealment of the truth about the killing of Gervaise McKerr, Eugene Toman and Seán was sanctioned at the very top of that section of the RUC. This invites a relevant question. If the killing of these three man was lawful, why falsify the truth?
PART II.
The killing of Michael Tighe and the wounding of Martin McCauley.
On Wednesday 24 November 1982 members of the HMSU shot seventeen year old Michael Tighe, killing him, and also shot nineteen year old Martin McCauley, who survived his injuries. The police had information that the PIRA had stored explosives in a hayshed at the rear of a house on the outskirts of Lurgan in County Armagh.
Was this another piece of information provided by a British agent whose cover name was Steaknife? (He was identified by name as Freddie Scappaticci on an American spy website in May 2003. He was described as ‘the jewel in the Crown of the British army’s network of agents inside the republican movement’. [6] He was the head of the PIRA’S internal security unit known as the ‘nutting squad’. He denied all the allegations against him, including allegations of murder, before he left Belfast in 2003 to live in Guildford in Surrey. It was alleged that he died in April 2023).
Following the receipt of that information, whatever its source, members of the security services M15 and M16 installed a recording device inside the hayshed. It was attached apparently to the door, got soaked in the rain and malfunctioned. The explosives were allegedly removed from the premises sometime thereafter. The recording device failed to warn anyone that was going on. It was allegedly repaired and in working order prior to the Wednesday when the shootings took place. There was some suspicion that the explosives which were removed were used in the killing of the three RUC officers on 27 October 1982 at the Kinnego embankment. That was said to have caused immense grief to other serving officers in the RUC who considered that the murders could have been prevented.
Martin McCauley’s explanation for being found at the hayshed, known locally as Kitty’s hayshed, was that the elderly owner of the house had asked him to feed her pets, in her absence, that were kept in the hayshed.
As part of their training soldiers who were to be sent to Northern Ireland were specifically informed about the content of a document known as The Yellow Card. It contained instructions on the use of force by the Army in Northern Ireland. It was revised six times between 1969 and 1972. [7] It is applied to police officers there. In its General Instructions in all situations a soldier is required to use the minimum force necessary. In addition a challenge must be given before opening fire unless to do so would increase the risk of death or grave injury to the soldier or any other person. The challenge is to take the form: ‘Army, Stop or I Fire’.
Martin McCauley consistently denied there was any challenge. He was fired upon immediately and was gravely wounded but survived. He was charged with unlawful possession of a firearm. In fact two rifles, both more than 60 years old, were found at the premises. No ammunition was there or nearby.
At the trial that started on 15 January 1985, an RUC sergeant gave evidence admitting that he had lied to the investigating officers for two reasons. First, he had been ordered by a more senior officer to protect the identity of the informer, and second to conceal the involvement of the security services in the case. He was assured, so he said, that he was permitted to provide this false and misleading information under the provisions of the Official Secrets Act 1911. The fact that an important prosecution witness confessed to being a liar did not affect the outcome of the case. Martin McCauley was convicted and sentenced to two years imprisonment suspended for two years. The trial judge, Mr Justice Kelly, expressed some concern about the credibility of the police evidence, but nevertheless accepted it in the light of his rejection of Martin McCauley’s testimony.
No one was prosecuted for the killing of Michael Tighe. No mention was made at the trial by anyone that M15 had in their possession the recording of the whole violent episode. They had available at that time proof of the events was unfolded prior to and during the RUC opening fire, and presumably evidence of any warning that was allegedly given. But that was not the end of the matter. The Deputy Chief Constable of the Manchester Police, John Stalker, was appointed to conduct an inquiry into the shootings of a total of six men at the hands of the RUC. His appointment, and his subsequent findings following his investigation, were not welcomed by the security forces in Northern Ireland. It was a mistake on the part of the authorities to think that Stalker would put his personal ambition for advancement in the police service before his commitment to uncover the truth.
On the 10th of September 2014 BBC News reported a decision of the Court of Appeal in Northern Ireland presided over by the Lord Chief Justice Sir Declan Morgan. The Northern Ireland Criminal Cases Review Commission had carried out an investigation into the case of Martin McCauley and Michael Tighe and referred to the investigation carried out by John Stalker, into allegations the RUC were operating a shoot to kill policy in Northern Ireland. He had been the youngest detective superintendent ever appointed in the police service of England and Wales and was tipped as a future Commissioner of the London Metropolitan police. His mother was an Irish Catholic, but it was thought he would not take sides in his inquiry. He discovered the existence of the MI5 tape recording and asked for access to it. Sir John Hermon refused that request but apparently did not explain why. Its inference was obvious. John Stalker was removed from the inquiry in very controversial circumstances and later resigned from the police service.
His place was taken by another police officer, Colin Sampson.
The BBC News report states that “the tape recordings revealed that no warnings had been shouted by the officers before they opened fire’.[8] Exactly as claimed by Martin McCauley. The report continues by claiming ‘the Criminal Cases Review Commission also found a memo from an officer who said that he had learnt that the RUC officers had exceeded their orders and shot the men without giving them a chance to surrender. The CCRC found that although the Department of Public Prosecutions (DPP) was aware of the eavesdropping operation, they were not told about the recordings. A meeting between the deputy head of Special Branch and the DPP suggested that he deliberately misled them by concealing the operation. The deputy head then had the tapes and logs destroyed because of the embarrassment they might cause’.
If this is correct then does that not mean there is cogent and compelling evidence that there was a shoot to kill policy operating at that time in Northern Ireland, and that it was covered up by the very people who were carrying it out?
Although John Stalker did not discover its existence, and had no cause to suspect that it did exist, there was in fact another highly relevant tape recording in existence, the contents of which may even at this late date in 2025, become known to the public. The BBC investigative journalist Chris Moore disclosed the details on television in 1998. He said:
‘The BBC has been told that MI5/MI6 electronically bugged a car being used by three PIRA men in Armagh in 1982. The three men, Eugene Toman, Sean Burns and Gervaise McKerr, were shot dead by the RUC’s anti-terrorist unit. We’ve been told John Stalker was never made aware of this bugging operation. What he did not know was that MI5, MI6 and the RUC combined forces in an electronic bugging operation. We’ve been told that the car in which Burns, McKerr and Toman were shot dead was bugged. We’ve been given to understand that the security forces involved in the covert surveillance operation were able to listen to the conversation going on in the car’.[9]
Was there a conversation in that car about its destination and the purpose of its occupants? Clearly not, or it would have been disclosed as supporting evidence of the belief of the RUC officers that the three occupants of the car were out on a mission to kill. In addition was there a tracking device in the car, enabling the RUC to ascertain exactly where that vehicle was at any particular time?
In the course of his investigation John Stalker discovered Burns, McKerr and Toman had been under observation for many hours. (In fact it was three days), The police had planned to intercept them at a place entirely different from where the fatal killings actually occurred. The claim that a police officer was struck by the car was false. He further discovered that the E4A police officers drove away from the scene with their firearms and to attend a de-briefing session with senior Special Branch officers.[10]
RUC detectives were obstructed at every turn when they tried to investigate the shooting. They had many questions to ask all those who were at the crime scene, but in fact were denied access to the three police officers involved in the car shooting. They were also denied access to the clothes and weapons the offiers had used on the night, so the opportunity of subjecting them to forensic examination was lost. ‘CID detectives were given incorrect information about where the shootings began and part of the forensic examination was conducted in the wrong place’[11]
In his Report into the Toman, McKerr and Burns’ killings John Stalker described the RUC investigation as slipshod and totally inadequate. He concluded that either the investigating officers were either amateur and inefficient or deliberately inept.
The informer who had alleged that Burns, McKee and Toman murdered the three RUC officers on 27 October also claimed that Martin McCauley was the fourth man involving in the bombing on the Kinnego Embankment. None of the four were ever questioned by the RUC about this allegation and thus had no opportunity to deny it. There was not a single scrap of independent corroborative evidence at that time to incriminate any one of them. That led to John Stalker concluding that he could not overlook the possibility that revenge killings had taken place. Can there be any reasonable doubt that when the RUC officer fired his gun at Martin McCauley, he intended to kill him; he claimed he was acting in self-defence when he did so. Was that claim the plain unvarnished truth?
When John Stalker published his autobiography in 1988 he wrote “I do not doubt that my discovery of the existence of the killing of Tighe in the hay shed, and my pursuit of it, created very real anxiety, I was breaking new ground in my demand for access, and anti-terrorist operators within MI5 and the Special Branch were bitterly unhappy about even speaking to me’. If the police and prosecution evidence was true why was it necessary to falsify the truth?
On Thursday 22nd of August 2024 there was a sensational development in the case involving Martin McCauley. He is now 61 years of age. He was brought before the High Court in Dublin on the application of the police service of Northern Ireland that he should be extradited from Dublin to Belfast for trial in connection with the killing of the three RUC officers on the Kinnego Embankment near Lugan on the 27th of October 1982. It is alleged that new forensic evidence connects him with those killings.
McCauley is now on bail, granted by the court, until such time as the prosecution wish to proceed against him. It is claimed that the forensic evidence connects Martin McCauley with that offence, namely that eight smoked cigarettes recovered from the crime scene contains DNA that matches the profile of Martin McCauley. It is further alleged that the DNA found on two smoked cigarettes recovered from the same place suggests they were shared by Martin McCauley and Eugene Toman.[12]
This begs the question. When the RUC opened fire on Martin McCauley at Kitty’s hayshed, were they intent on killing him, not because he was armed with an old rifle, but because, as in the case of the other three, McKerr, Toman and Burns, they believed they were executing the killers of their three comrades?
If and when Martin McCauley appears for trial in Belfast charged with three murders, will his defence team allege that the ten smoked cigarettes were planted at the crime scene to establish his presence there and prove he was a party to murder? This gives rise to another pertinent question: did the police officers who opened fire on both suspects in the haybarn consider that they were shooting dead at least one of the suspects in the case of the deaths of three of their comrades?
Part III
The Killing of Seamus Grew and Roddy Carroll
The sectarian violence in 1982 in Armagh was ongoing. Another killer in British Army uniform was stalking the streets of that city. One of his intended targets was Seamus Grew who was a member of the Irish National Liberation Army. On 22 September 1982 a masked gunman carrying a machine gun attempted to break into a house in Mullacreevie Park on the outskirts of the city of Armagh. It was the home of Seamus Grew and his family. His wife Maureen, one of her friends and their son aged 8 were inside the premises. The gunman fired his weapon three times but hit no one. A second man outside the house fired a handgun into the house but he too failed in his mission to kill. The would-be killers fled in a car driven by a third person. The family sent for the RUC. Officers arrived an hour later. They seemed in not too much of a hurry to get there to commence their inquiries.
If they had gone to Drummagh Barracks in Armagh where soldiers of the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) were based, they might have found at least one of the gunmen. He was Geoffrey Edwards, age 26 years, who had served in the UDR for seven years. That Regiment was at that time the largest Infantry Regiment in the British Army. No less than 18 members of the Regiment were convicted of murder and a further 11 were convicted of manslaughter during The Troubles.
Geoffrey Edwards was still at liberty, some five weeks later, on the 25th of October 1982, when he shot 47 year old Peter Corrigan in the street as he walked with his son Martin, then only 16 years of age.
In December 1983 Edwards was sentenced to imprisonment for life for Mr Corrigan’s murder. He admitted another 18 violent, sectarian offences. He was one of the first prisoners to be released under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement in 1998.
As for Peter Corrigan who had witnessed the murder of his father, he was shot dead on the 18th of April 1990 by a British Army foot patrol. He is conclusive proof that sectarian violence begets further sectarian violence. He was survived by two young sons.
On the 20th of November 1982 Roderick Carroll made a written complaint to the Complaints and Discipline Branch of the RUC.
He alleged that he had been threatened that he would be killed by the security forces. He said they had told him he would be in his coffin before Christmas. If that was a promise, it was fulfilled.
The Complaints and Discipline Branch acknowledged receipt of his complaint on the 23rd of December 1982, adding that the subject would receive attention. By that date he was dead, having been shot on the night of Sunday the 12th of December 1982 by a constable in the RUC who had formerly served in the British Army. Is it not extraordinary that a person should complain about threats to his life to the very police service, one of whose officers shot him dead.
Roderick Carroll spent part of that Sunday with Seamus Grew. They went to the funeral of Thomas O’Connor who was Roderic Carroll’s grandfather in Magherafelt in County Derry. They did not know it but they were under observation by an inspector of the Special Branch of the RUC and other members of the security forces.
At about 8:30 in the evening of that Sunday as they approach Mulllacreevie Park in a yellow Allegro car driven by Seamus Grew they were shot dead at close range by that RUC constable.
According to the Assistant State Pathologist for Northern Ireland, Dr James Press, Seamus Grew had been struck by seven bullets most of which could have come from behind and to his left. Roderick Carroll had been struck by at least 7, and possibly 9 bullets, most of which appear to come from behind and to his right.
The State sponsored lies began. The first official version was that the car had been driven through a police checkpoint at Girvans Bridge some five miles from the city centre, colliding with and injuring a police officer. (The RUC later admitted that this was a deliberately false version of the events of that evening). The car, they said, was recognised as belonging to a known terrorist. Another police car was summoned and gave chase to the fleeing car. Police forced the Allegro car to stop. But not for long; it reversed at speed and in doing so revealed the police officers in its headlights. A police officer who approached the car, which he knew belonged to Seamus Grew, heard a bang and believed he had been shot at. Further believing his life was in danger he immediately responded by firing his Smith & Wesson revolver, emptying the magazine, into the front passenger door, killing Roderick Carroll. No doubt, still believing his life was in danger, he went around the front of the car, as a consequence he was lit up in the car’s headlights putting him in view of a man he believed to be armed and dangerous, and fired four shots at the driver’s door. He approached the vehicle, opened the driver’s door with his left hand and Seamus Grew fell out of the car onto the road. His body was found on the road lying parallel to and about 18 inches from the door with his head towards the rear of the car.
A later forensic examination of Seamus Grew’s Parka jacket showed two upper back entry holes, around which were particles of propellant. A scientist considered that these particles came from ammunition fired by the police officer when the muzzle of the gun was within 30 to 35 inches of Mr Grew’s back. Does that mean he was shot in the back after he fell out of the car?
Asked to explain this evidence, the uniformed constable, Constable R, continued to maintain he had fired four shots through the door of the car.
Neither dead man was armed with any weapon. It will be remembered that when Geoffrey Edwards had attempted to kill Seamus Grew at his home only a few weeks earlier on 22nd September 1982, Seamus Grew did not have a firearm, or any other weapon in his possession, to use in defence of himself, his wife and his young son in his own home.
There was a police investigation. It didn’t amount to much.
The RUC officer, Constable R, a member of the special unit E4A who shot both men, was charged with murder on 1 September 1983, almost nine months after the double killing. He had been interviewed in a question and answer session which was reduced into writing in the form of a statement. Some of the answers that he gave were false.
The explanation for this was that Constable R and other members of his unit were told by senior officers to lie so as to conceal the fact that they were participating in a planned operation based on sourced information and acting in concert with other army surveillance teams.[13] He was apparently led to believe that the Official Secrets Act might be breached if he told the truth.
Constable R appeared before Mr Justice MacDermott at the end of March 1984 charged with the murder of Seamus Grew. There was no charge against anyone relating to the killing of Roderick Carroll. The trial lasted for seven days. The judge was told in evidence that eleven members of the Special Support unit, E4A, were sent from Belfast to Armagh on Saturday the 11th of December. A number of those officers left the barracks at about 8:00 PM. on the Sunday evening of the 12th of December. By this time the car driven by Seamus Grew, a yellow Allegro, was within 30 minutes drive of his home.
In his written reserved judgement. Mr Justice MacDermott who had made it plain during the course of the trial that he was not interested in any details relating to the lying statements put out by the RUC press office, said that members of the unit had been sent to Armagh as the police authorities believed after the receipt of information from their intelligence sources that a man called Dominic McGlinchey was coming over the border from the Republic of Ireland on either the Saturday or the Sunday. McGlinchey was a man believed to be deeply involved in terrorist activity whom the police wanted to apprehend in connection with the fatal shooting of a postmistress and he was a man who the police believed to be coming North to kill members of the security forces.
It was also the police belief that McGlinchey would enter Northern Ireland in an Allegro driven by the deceased Grew, who was known to be a leading member of the Irish National Liberation Army He was a man who had previously had been released from prison after receiving a 14 year sentence. The RUC regarded him as a known terrorist and a man who had attacked police officers The were convinced that both men were likely to be armed and would have no qualms about resisting arrest.
Mr Justice MacDermott seemed not to have considered whether it was likely that Seamus Grew would not only use his own vehicle to drive McGlinchey across the border into Northern Ireland, but then take a marked man to his own home at which address a loyalist death squad had tried to kill Seamus Grew and his family less than three months earlier. Moreover it was common knowledge throughout Northern Ireland ever since 1974 the security forces used a computerised vehicle number plate system, using the code name ‘Operation Vengeful’. The mainframe computer was based at the headquarters of the British Army in Lisburn near Belfast, but Vengeful terminals many of which were positioned at checkpoints on the border with the Irish Republic could obtain information on the car within about 30 seconds.
Surely a safe house and an unrecognisable car would have been available to McGlinchey and his accomplices in any part of Northern Ireland.
In a report of the case The Sunday Times described how two police officers, Special Branch inspector and the uniformed police constable encountered the car after it crossed the border into Northern Ireland. They called on the driver of the Allegro car to stop. The police constable got out of the unmarked police car “and fired fifteen times, killing Carroll”. He then walked around the car reloaded his weapon and fired four shots at Grew. “He said he believed his life was in danger”. After the shooting, debriefing was arranged by senior officers who issued a false version of events to protect an informer on whom the Special Branch relied…… it was not until a year later, when the uniformed officer was forced to mount a defence to the charge of murder Seamus Grew that the Chief Constable allowed him to give his account of the incident”.[14]
In examination in chief, in reply to questions from his own counsel, Michael Lavery QC, and after accepting that he knew he would be interviewed by the CID, the dialogue went as follows:
Q. ‘And were you given instructions as to how you should deal with this interview?
A. We were indeed my Lord.
Q. And what officers were involved without giving their names? You could give their ranks.
A. A Superintendent, Chief Inspector. and others present my Lord……..
Q. Was there any discussion as to what you should tell the CID.
A There was indeed, my Lord.
Q. And what was agreed, if I may call it that?
A. They produced the story, my Lord.
Q. What was that story?
A. Basically my Lord, it removed the accident and replaced it with a vehicle checkpoint.
Q. What was the object of doing that then?
A. That was to get rid of the army involvement my Lord, the accident was all sorted out and there was no source involvement at all.
Q. So this was to appear as a chance encounter rather than a planned encounter?
A. That’s correct my Lord’.
When cross examined by counsel for the prosecution Mr Anthony Campbell QC on the details of the story and when it was first concocted and by whom, Constable R stated the supposed roadblock was first mentioned on his return to Gough barracks and then again the next day when he returned to his base in Belfast. There a Chief Superintendent told him he could not mention some of the true details because of the Official Secrets Acts. The officer clearly believed what he was told by his superior officer.
The trial judge seemed unfazed in the face of this bizarre evidence. According to a report in the New Statesman magazine, the journalist the late Mary Holland wrote, ‘in court the trial judge praised constable R for his sharp shooting.’[15] Some may consider that was a remark that never should have been made. Was this another regrettable example of judicial gloating over the deaths of two unarmed men at the hands of someone who was judge, jury and executioner in their cause?
On 1 January 2025 the Irish Government released the State Papers for the year 1985 under the provisions of the 30 year rule on disclosure of State Documents. They are now held in the National Archives in Dublin. Amongst those papers is one document marked ‘secret’. It is a record made by a diplomat, Daithi O’Ceallaigh and is dated 8 July 1985. That note expresses the views of a leading Belfast solicitor, the late P.J. McGrory, that ‘in recent years the courts have been manipulated in an unprecedent fashion by Lowry.’ (He was Sir Robert Lowry, the Lord Chief Justice of Northern Ireland at the time). The note continues: ‘Lowry sees the list of all cases which must be heard in the Diplock courts so ensuring he controls who hears them….Another example of manipulation is that it is nearly always the same judges who hear cases against the Army and the Police, who are usually found not guilty.’[16]
Is this a manifestation of the total lack of judicial independence and impartiality amongst the senior judiciary in Northern Ireland at that time?
If Mr McGrory is correct in his view, how could the Catholic/Nationalist/ Republican people in Northern Ireland have any confidence in the criminal justice system which applied to them?
Can there be any doubt that Lord Justice Gibson and Mr Justice MacDermott would be amongst those judges? Were they regarded by the Lord Chief Justice as a ‘safe pair of hands’ when he nominated them to conduct the trials, in the absence of a jury? Verdicts of ‘not guilty’ in a Diplock Court, i.e. one that consists of a trial judge alone, sitting without a jury, cannot be overturned by any superior court of justice.
Mr Justice MacDermott entered a verdict of ‘not guilty’ in the case of Constable R. Some might have been surprised if that verdict had been anything else.
Suggested further reading:
Footnotes:
[1] Irish Times 19 August 2023.
[2] Shoot to kill -International Lawyers Inquiry into the Lethal Use of Firearms by the Security Forces in Northern Ireland. Kader Asmal. At page 40
[3] Amnesty International. United Kingdom. Northern Ireland: Killings by Security Forces and ‘Supergrass’ Trials. 1988
[4] 30 April 1987
[5] [2014] NIQB 11.
[6] Stakeknife Britain’s Secret Agents in Ireland by Martin Ingram and Greg Harkin at page 241.
[7] Irish Times 30 March 1972
[8] BBC News 10 September 2014
[9] Cited by Martin Dillon, The Dirty War, at page 400
[10] Amnesty International: United Kingdom Northern Ireland killing by Security Forces and Super grass trials at page 20
[11] Ibid
[12] Irish Independent, 23 August 2024, Aodhan O’Faolain
[13] Northern Ireland judgement bulletin 1984 No 4 page 5
[14] The Sunday Times 8th of April 1984
[15] Shoot to kill? International lawyers inquiry into the lethal use of firearms by the security forces in Northern Ireland at page 39
[16] Document reference 2024/28/57. headed ‘Meeting with P.J. McGrory, 2 July 1985 held at the National Archives Dublin