Wheels within wheels

Liam Clarke, in his article in the Belfast Telegraph on 18 June says: “the Castlereagh raid allowed the IRA to identify the entire agent network in Belfast through a process of elimination.”

It is interesting that this observation, relating to events which occurred in 2002, passed without apparent comment in the media.

Was the “raid” in fact a hostile act by a devilishly cunning SF/IRA unit or was it staged? Was the insider in fact Larry the Chef, a state agent, and was the object of the state to further destabilise SF/IRA?

Larry was never prosecuted, a decision made jointly by the police, who took him out of the jurisdiction and the PPS.

Guess who was asked to investigate? A man call Chilcott.

Could Barney Rowan help?

Imagine the scene at the army council when the product of the raid was tabled. “Gerry, I never knew….you too Marty….gosh and you , and you”. It is unlikely that anyone on the army council failed to make the grade.

So why the silence both from the media and from SF/IRA?

It’s the Peace Process Stupid!

The wonderful world of the PPS

Aside from the considerable interest the press and public would have taken had Barra appeared as a witness for the defence or the prosecution  [see Larkin para 4.49-4.51] in the trial of Liam Adams, a number of other points arise from the Starmer and Larkin reports.

1. Why was Gerry Adams, Barra’s former client, not called in the second trial? The answer to the justice committee from the Deputy director was “technical reasons” [ a well known legal term] and the volume of potential disclosure. One wonders if this disclosure related to Gerry’s terrorist activities and/or his usefulness to the state. It may well be another example of where intelligence held by the state intrudes into the administration of justice.

2. Whilst taking responsibility for the AA/BB/Cahill shambles Barra blamed the two prosecuting barristers. Asked by the justice committee about his civil servants , his response was that of the three involved , one had retired and the other two were not in the places they had been when the events happened. This is an obscure remark. Does it mean that they have been sent to the PPS equivalent of the Russian Front or Siberia? He went on to tell the committee that neither would be disciplined because their actions “did not raise issues of indiscipline”. So there you have it. No harm will befall the civil servants, they will eventually retire on their inflation proofed pensions. Meanwhile they may be performing incompetently in your case, dear reader. Their names have never been made public. Meanwhile the two barristers face a public disciplinary hearing.

3. Moving on from that demimonde , Barra was asked a number of questions by Edwin Poots. Barra initially declined to respond when Poots  asked him what ‘he put his thing in me” might mean. Having unsuccessfully appealed to the chairman for protection, he stated that it was a description of penetration. Poots point was that that remark by the complainant re Liam, her father, constituted a complaint of rape and that it had been heard by Gerry, bringing him within the ambit of the then legislation on with holding information. Larkin concluded that Aine’s evidence re Gerry called at the very least for clarification.

4. Alban Maginness told Barra that Larkin’s report gave the PPS “a clean bill of health”. Let’s examine that. The real nub of the PPS performance is set out by Larkin at paras 6.17- 6.22. Larkin notes that in relation to the assessment of the evidence against Gerry, neither the acting director nor senior counsel appear, from the acting deputy director’s minute, to have been provided with the two transcribed interviews of Aine. Nor did senior counsel have access to a minute from the directing officer. So , another PPS communication failure. Larkin was not asked to comment on the decision not to prosecute Gerry but it is clear that had communications been working properly , at the least the PPS would have sought clarification from Aine or Gerry. Larkin describes the “obvious steps” that should have been taken at 6.40. This all leaves out of account Larkin’s view that the PPS did not follow its own procedures.

5 Enter the PSNI, stage left. The police told the PPS that Gerry Adams had “quite rightly…Aine’s welfare at the forefront throughout”. Contrast that astonishing statement with his performance under cross-examination in the first trial. Is this a genuinely held belief by the PSNI or was it another smokescreen? They lobbied the PPS for no prosecution of Gerry “in the public interest” Did it fall within example [x] in the PPS list of some grounds for not prosecuting in the public interest ” where details may be made public that could harm sources of information, international relations or national security”?

6. A number of the members of the justice committee voiced concern at the performance of the PPS. It is hard to disagree.

6. Larkin’s report was spun by the PPS as a vindication of its activities. It is no such thing.

Danske Bank

Do you remember the Bank Manager?

I remember them in the fifties.

He  wore a three piece suit, drove a Rover car and lived in a detached house.

Even in the sixties and seventies the service he provided was first rate.

Probity is a word that comes to mind re all their dealings.

Now we have Danske Bank, which does not want its head office to be listed , in case it costs them money.

Probity is not a word one could apply to its venal staff who would take a pensioner’s fuel payment to reduce an overdraft.

Probity is not a word that comes to mind when the senior staff have sex with the junior women in the office.

Probity is not a word one could apply when a staff member who snooped on a customer’s account is still employed there.

But that’s twenty-first century banking for you.

Nulla in mundo pax

Twenty five years ago this morning my parents were laid to rest after a service in St Matthew’s Parish Church. It was filled with their friends. Twenty five years on, what is their legacy , if any?

EDUCATION Deeply segregated on every level and on all fronts except for a small number of schools,BRA, MCB.

HEALTH As my friend , Colin said, you have to deal with everything else, then you go to A/E , lie on a trolley and die.

ECONOMY A joke. Talked up by OFMDFM. Look at empty shops in every town centre. There has been little improvement in productivity in twenty years and we don’t pay our way.

JUSTICE Another bad joke with a DPP who , because of his past with Republicans can’t participate in major decisions. Would make a banana republic look healthy.

HUMAN RIGHTS We are a laughing stock. Cakes, abortion, gay rights. The backwater of the world. Much of it due to Ulster women who are still largely subservient.

BUT! We produce Game of Thrones, which reflects Ulster values, rape , pillage, murder, treachery and the general demeaning of women. No wonder Peter and Marty love it.

MEANWHILE We rejoice in the opening of a consulate for a country which executes thousands of people every year. No, not the USA, China!

We have roughly the same population as Hampshire, though a smaller economy. Despite that we have a central government, a local government and a separate judiciary. Imagine a Lord Chief Justice of Hampshire?

Martin McGuinness a sense of outrage?

Given the remarks by participants in BBC Spotlight and previous accusations by me and others, what does it take for McGuinness to be arrested and questioned?

You might think that the DUP and the UUP would be outraged on behalf of their constituents but they are silent. I wonder why?

Will this community never face the truth?

Let me be clear, as politicians are keen to say.

Martin McGuinness is a multiple murderer who was in charge of northern command PIRA and a member of the army council. He probably retains those roles.

He was instrumental in the killing of my parents. He has been accused of all these matters before yet he has not chosen to contest the allegations in court.

I wonder does he have an assurance from the state that he will not be prosecuted?

Shall we ask Barra McGrory, his former lawyer? Now , God help us , Director of [some] Public Prosecutions.

Twenty five years ago, a running commentary

So, having been told, in court,  by Alan White, Deputy Director DPP, as it then was, of the bombing, I made my way to the RVH. My Dad was dead and it was a question of finding my Mum and ascertaining her condition. There was confusion as to where she was but I found her eventually. She was under the care of Dr Coppell [a ex BRA boy ] and his excellent team. I was then taken from the RVH to the morgue , under the care of Gerry Sillery an old Forth River class mate and sub divisional commander for B division. I identified my Dad, having been warned not to touch him, for forensic reasons.

I returned to the RVH and to my terminally ill mother.

In the middle of the night I was sitting in a quiet area of the RVH, trying to gather my thoughts. A figure in a track suit approached. It was Denis Maloney, solicitor. He had been trying to find me. That gesture was immensely comforting. He had lost his parents in the British Midland crash the previous year. His parents’ grave is not far from my parents. Today, as usual, I left two red roses on my parents’ grave , then visited the Maloney grave.

So ended 6th June 1990.

I’m not by any means a special case but I hope that by publishing this discourse I will draw attention to the horrors which people suffered in these cases.

It is striking to me how many people came to my aid and probably how few ever thought that the state was complicit.

I have spoken to a number of ex RUC officers over the last year and every one has disappeared. I wonder why?

I notice also that there is a RUC GC service in St Marks in Newtownards tomorrow. I wonder why I don’t get an  invite?

The murderers of my parents

On this day, twenty five years ago, my Dad drove his car out of the driveway and parked it on the road. He had been retired from the RUC for three years, having been mortared at New Barnsley, where his colleague Dessie Dobbin, was killed. It is likely , given the forensic findings, that he checked underneath it before he moved it from the drive. At about ten o’clock, he and my mother drove off. About four hundred yards down the road a bomb, placed underneath the vehicle exploded. My Dad was dead on arrival at the Mater Hospital. My Mum , having sustained severe head injuries , died the next day.

PIRA claimed responsibility and Adams said it might not have been a good operation. But then , he was never in the IRA.

The cause of Irish unity was not progressed one inch but my daughter never knew her Grandparents.

The persons responsible for these murders were as follows.

First there had to be an active service unit, carrying out these brave acts. There were three operational in the greater Belfast area in 1990.

Bomb Team A, as I shall call it , was comprised, inter alia, of Rosaleen McCorley MLA and James Donnelly. They were arrested in January 1990 in the act of placing a bomb under a policeman’s car.

Bomb Team B had in its ranks  Rosena Brown and Davy Adams [brother of Gerry]. It might have had Martin McGartland also , but he has denied this to me. Brown, Paul McCullough and Stephen Canning were arrested in  1992 in possession of a bomb.

Bomb Team C was comprised of Martin McGartland, Fitzsimmons and McFadden. They carried out a number of operations before McFadden and Fitzsimmons were arrested in North Belfast in December 1990, in possession of two bombs and a gun. Interestingly, McGartland was not at the scene.

Therefore in June 1990 , either bomb team B or C could have carried out the attack.

Councillor Sean Keenan took part in the attack. He was rewarded for his efforts on 7 June when a UDA/UFF team tried to kill him. He had already been shot in the company of Gerry Adams. Keenan’s house was heavily fortified. I wonder why? Did the state pay for it?

The attack was scouted by Sean Maguire , from Ardoyne. He was an “intelligence officer” and a state agent , a tout. He betrayed Larry Marley to the Loyalists, in order to please his British masters. He is now PR adviser to Martin McGuinness and can be spotted, if you are quick enough , in the background,behind Grandpa McGuinness on the Hill. I wonder where Sean banked his money?

The operations officer, responsible for coordinating attacks, was Paddy Fern. The bomb was provided by McCartney, who was Quartermaster.

The police have told me that they know the identities of the bomb makers. Bombs were kept in the “Rock Streets” off the Falls.

Next in the chain of command was Spike Murray.

The OC Belfast was Brian Gillen an agent of the Crown.

The operation had to be approved by Martin McGuinness, head of northern command. Read Ed Moloney’s book about this [p347] and also the allegations made by Scappaticci, in conversations with journalists.

Both the RUC Special Branch [SB] and the Army’s Force Research Unit [FRU] were involved in the recruiting and handling of agents. Some agents were placed in organisations, others were recruited from their ranks.

The purpose of an agent was to report on the activities of the terrorist group so as to enable the state to disrupt its activities and arrest its members.

There were no rules governing the use of these agents in 1990, particularly in relation to the criminal actives in which they might participate. Issues arose as to what would happen if an agent told his handlers that he was about to take part in a crime or if he declared that he had in fact committed an offence.

De Silva documents the attempts made by the RUC and the Army to obtain guidance from the state. He also documents how the state consistently failed to give such guidance and deliberately dragged its heels on the issue.

Without any structure both SB and FRU worked in a vacuum. They had agents placed in the heart of Sinn Fein/IRA, many are still there. Apart from Donaldson and ‘Scap’ obviously. I’m not convinced that Scap is Stake Knife. What about Padraic Wilson, does he fit the profile?

SB and FRU played God. De Silva documents how at one time the Loyalists planned to kill Oliver Kelly, solicitor. This seemed like a good plan until the state placed a higher value on him, because he was a moderating influence on hunger strikers, whereupon FRU told the Loyalists to back off. The same happened to a plan to kill Adams in 1987. Why was Adams so valuable then? Finucane was apparently disposable.

In assessing a planned terrorist attack SB/FRU considered two issues:

1. The value of the target to the state, or not.

2. Any potential danger to their “asset’ the agent.

Consider my list of agents, above. They must have provided SB/FRU with a wealth of information. Not every operation could be stopped because the agent’s colleagues and masters would become suspicious. There are only so many times that extra police can flood an area or an Army checkpoint appears.

So every so often a attack has to get through, even though SB/FRU have been warned. Or perhaps the agent ‘forgot’ to tell his handlers.

So, on the morning of 6th June 1990, nobody came to the rescue of James and Ellen Sefton.

After my Dad had checked his car and left it outside the house, PIRA planted a bomb underneath it. I know this because the ATO opined that the car travelled as far as it did because the timer, set for an hour, had not wound down before  the start of the journey.

Ultimately, the state is responsible for their deaths.

My parents had a right to life and an expectation that the state would protect them. Instead the state protected the agent and the process. Read the documents in de Silva relating to the prosecution of Nelson to get a feel for how far the state would go to protect the process.

Although the RUC and FRU were not assisted by the state in how to run informers,that is no excuse. The RUC was staffed by ordinary men and women from this Province, some of whom would have known my Dad. Shame on them for being part of an organisation which practised this witchcraft.

Perhaps even now, twenty five years on, one of them might have the decency to come clean, before they have a chat with their Maker.

I am , of course, leaving aside the prospect of a Republican having a conscience.

I am not alone in having suffered this injustice. I am not , by a long way, the worst example.

I hope, though, that others, similarly afflicted may be given some encouragement to enquire into their own tragedies.

James Galway

1. Brought up a Prod.

2. Played the flute.

3. Escaped this benighted Isle.

4. Learned about what happened in the real world.

5. Lives in a country which works hard , makes money, has no budget deficit and accommodates a number of races and religions. Switzerland is also very clean, unlike Belfast.

6. Maybe his views are worth listening to?

Anyway anybody who thinks that Paisley was a man of God is clearly bonkers.  He was clearly responsible for enormous carnage , including murders.

Sinn Fein/IRA’s touts

Even as I write, in England, Boys and Girls , educated at Oxbridge, are wrestling with a problem.

It is this.

Given that sooner or later the enormity of the participation of senior Sinn Fein/IRA personnel as state touts will emerge, how should the state  manage it? Also, how do we stop the Irish rabbiting on about the past?

Clearly, blanket denial is not an answer.

These clever Boys and Girls, schooled from childhood to take on the mantle of those who ran an Empire upon which the sun never set, will have to come up with an answer to bamboozle the Paddies.

We may be already seeing the first fruits of their labour.

“Well placed sources” and “veteran journalists” will start to mention the unmentionable. Books will be written. Reference has already been made in the last few days to Adams’ family.

I believe that I have already articulated the notion that the state knew years ago about the Adams Family Values and probably also about the Cahill family. They would have used this information for their own ends.

But I digress. The tactic is to reveal sufficient for the masses to be a little shocked, but not a lot. Slowly but surely they become used to it.

“Of course the Army Council were all informers” says the man in the pub/golf club/church/garden centre, “everybody knows that”

Then as the Boys and Girls point out , distracted by Britain’s Got Talent and other Circuses, if not bread, the masses  will move on.

Jimmy Savile has already been replaced by Sepp as the Bogey Man.

The aim is to numb, neutralise and normalise so that nobody asks the hard questions about the state’s involvement in murders that could have been avoided. “It’s all terribly sad and it was a cock up not a conspiracy so  let’s move on.”

Sadly , for the Boys and Girls and their Mandarin Masters, a few good people will continue to ask awkward questions.