PODCAST: The Kincora child rape and murder gang.

By David Burke.

Darragh McColgan recently asked me to appear on his Rebels and Rogues podcast to talk about the Kincora scandal. I accepted because McColgan is fearless and lets his guests tell the raw, uncensored truth.

The first of the two-part interview that resulted can be found on YouTube by clicking here:

One of the issues emphasised is that the abuse perpetrated at Kincora Boys’ Home in Belfast was a part of a far larger blackmail and ‘kompromat’ operation run variously by MI6, MI5 and RUC Special Branch.

MI5 learned about the abuse of boys in Northern Ireland from the notorious traitor Sir Anthony Blunt, formerly of MI5. They and MI6 exploited the vice ring when the Troubles began. Blunt worked at Buckingham Palace and knew Lord Mountbatten.

Another topic discussed was the case of Alan Campbell, an MI5 agent, who was the prime suspect in the rape, murder and disposal of at least one victim of the vice ring.

All told, five boys disappeared. The Kincora scandal is not just about the unbridled rampage of child rapists but also about the protection – by MI5 and the RUC – of a gang of paedophile serial killers.

In addition, at least a dozen boys committed suicide.

These killers and rapists and/or their reputations and crimes are still being protected by the British government. The podcast aims to explain how this happened.

Another issue raised is why The Irish Times failed to expose the scandal in 1973 when Colin Wallace, a senior PsyOps officer at British Army HQNI Lisburn, provided them with details about William McGrath, the ‘Housefather’ at Kincora. He gave the paper a document with all the clues. Wallace was also available to flesh out the details in the document with other relevant facts.

The Irish Times did nothing. Kincora boys continued to suffer violent rape for another seven years.

*The information about William McGrath which was furnished to* The Irish Times. The paper did nothing. Boys were raped by McGrath for another seven years.

Thomas Spence and John Rodgers were last seen in 1974, a year after The Irish Times was briefed about McGrath and the terrorist group he commanded, Tara. Had the paper exposed the paedophile gang that revolved around McGrath, they would not have been abducted and murdered.

The Irish Times was controlled throughout the Troubles by an MI5 and MI6 asset called Maj Thomas McDowell, a former MI5 officer.

See also: Our Man in Dublin. [WebBook]

The second part of the Rebels and Rogues podcast can be found here: https://youtu.be/GrtNhAo9-Gw?si=0Ba3iazqwJWAgMM_

The second part examines the links between the wider Kincora scandal and former ‘Sir’ Jeffrey Donaldson. The burning issue for Loyalists is whether MI5 blackmailed Donaldson.

Theresa May, now a member of the House of Lords, should be asked what MI5 included in the file it presented to her during her 2019 negotiations with the DUP as she sought their support for her minority Tory government. Did the files reveal that he was a paedophile, a consumer of pornography, a visitor to gay saunas, a sex pest and an adulterer?

In what must amount to one of the most important statements made about the reality of politics in Northern Ireland, Norman Baxter, the former Operational Director of Intelligence of the PSNI Special Branch, told Mandy McAuley of BBC NI’s Spotlight that the government, i.e. MI5, guided figures like Donaldson, who had compromised backgrounds, in the direction they wished politics to travel. Baxter told Spotlight:

‘Well, I’d be convinced that the Northern Ireland Office or an element of the government would have known of that behaviour [Donaldson’s sexual activities] because it’s their role to know. Part of managing the peace process is to understand the political actors – to profile and to understand where there is political leverage, and then you apply mechanisms to guide them to where you want the political position to be. I mean, the government would have been failing in their responsibility not to deep-dive into the activities of MPs or other politicians.‘ (Broadcast by Spotlight 26 June 2026.)

*Mandy McAuley of Spotlight. Her interview with Norman Baxter has*
*produced one of the most important statements ever uttered about the reality of politics in Northern Ireland*.

One outcome MI5 feared deeply in 2019 was Jeremy Corbyn becoming prime minister.

While the DUP despised Corbyn, MI5 may have ‘appl[ied] mechanisms to guide [the DUP] to where’ it ‘want[ed] the political position to be‘. The DUP was confused, badly led and angry about Brexit, which was backfiring on them. They could have abstained from voting for anyone as Prime Minister. Hence, another election beckoned, in which the public might yet vote enough for the Labour Party to make Corbyn Prime Minister. The threat receded once the Tories concluded their deal with the DPP.

There are about 20 stories on Kuncora, William McGrath, Tara and the Anglo-Irish Vice Ring, on this website. Click here for access to them: https://coverthistory.ie/category/kincora/