ronnie flanagan

Smithwick and Mains- a taster

The Belfast Telegraph has published a gushing article about Alan Mains.  What it does not mention is his controversial evidence at the Smithwick Inquiry. This investigated the murders of Breen and Buchanan by PIRA.

It has never been clear why Mains did not accompany his friend and boss , Breen to Dundalk.

Three possibilities immediately present themselves:

  1. He was never tasked to go.
  2. He asked Breen might he have time off to play rugby.
  3. He wanted to go to the gym.

Readers need to study the report to decide which, if any of these is the truth. The rugby one is repeated in the Belfast Telegraph article.

Jamie Bryson wrote about Mains in his  book , Three Headed Dog. He alleged that Mains worked for MI5. He was Kevin Fulton’s handler, inter alia.

Mains never sued.

Most RUC officers I have spoken to regard Mains as a fantasist, claiming to have been here and there, without cause.

He went so far to tell me that he had been at the scene of my parents’ murders, yet nobody I have spoken to recalls him being there or why he would have had any need to be there. There is no evidence in the papers I have seen , of his presence.

His rise to stardom was connected to his friendship with Ronnie Flanagan, that bibulous womaniser, who did the bidding of the British state in rebranding the RUC.

Anyway, don’t take my word for it, read Smithwick.

So Dear Belfast Telegraph, next time you want to eulogise someone like Mains, do you homework.

Here is the extract.

“6.1.16 Mr Mains gave evidence over the course of two days and was robustly cross – examined by both counsel for the Garda Commissioner and counsel for Mr Owen Corrigan. It is fair to say that one of the central points of their cross – examination is that Mr Mains’ original statement of 22nd March 1989 appears inconsistent with his evidence about:

(i) Chief Superintendent Breen asking Mr Mains him to accompany him to Dundalk;

(ii) his being asked to phone Bob Buchanan to see if Superintendent Buchanan was available to go to Dundalk; and

(iii) his making a telephone call to the Dundalk Garda Station on Chief Superintendent Breen’s behalf to arrange the meeting.

It was, in essence, suggested that Mr Mains’ written statement of 22nd March 1989 does not support his evidence in relation to these three aspects and therefore affects his overall credibility as a witness.

6.1.17 It is the case that the following part of Mr Mains’s statement does not sit easily with his evidence in relation to his role in setting up the meeting in Dundalk:

“He [Chief Superintendent Breen] informed me that he had to attend a meeting in Dundalk that afternoon with the Border Superintendent, Superintendent Buchanan, along with Chief Superintendent Nolan, Garda.”

 

6.1.24 “I would add that it appears from all of the evidence before me that neither the statement which Mr Mains did provide in 1989 – which refers to Harry Breen’s concerns about unnamed members of An Garda Síochána – nor the further specific information in relation to Owen Corrigan which I find as a fact Mr Mains did share with the senior officers, was communicated to An Garda Síochána. I find this extremely surprising. In the immediate aftermath of the killings of two of the most senior RUC officers to be murdered in the Troubles, the RUC was informed that one of them, only hours before is death, had expressed concerns about a Garda officer being in the pay of ‘Slab’ Murphy. It seems incomprehensible to me why the RUC did not immediately raise that matter with An Garda Síochána. The likeliest explanation that one can find on the evidence is Mr Mains’ account of what Sir John Hermon said to him in Newry on 21st March 1989, namely that Owen Corrigan had already been investigated and had been cleared. Yet both the Police Service of Northern Ireland and An Garda Síochána have indicated to the Tribunal that there is no documentation to support the suggestion that such an investigation in relation to Detective Sergeant Corrigan was carried out. I am therefore compelled to the view that the information ought to have been, but was not, shared with the Gardaí, and no reasonable explanation for this failure can be discerned.”

It should also be pointed out that no RUC officer , called to give evidence at Smithwick, remembered Mains’s  alleged meeting with the Chief Constable.

 

 

 

 

The RUC and the Cosa Nostra

On 6th June 1990 there were, on conservative estimates ,100  RUC informers among the PIRA in Belfast.

Each had a team of  handlers, probably four in number, to cover sickness, leave etc. Four hundred so far.

The handlers had bosses; sergeants, inspectors, chief inspectors, superintendents etc.  Let’s estimate a further fifty senior officers.

Four hundred and fifty so far.

Then the meetings had to be covered by E4A and others, each one, day by day. Maybe another 100 officers , who would have seen the likes of Scappaticci, Sean Maguire, Brian Gillen etc “singing like canaries” in car parks in Hillsborough, Holywood , Helens Bay etc.

Five hundred and fifty.

The there was the “Hen House” where women, in serried ranks typed up the transcripts of the recordings of the meetings. Another fifty, at least.

Six hundred now.

Move to the civil servants in the NIO and others who read the ‘product’.

Then the Director of Public Prosecutions and his staff…

I’m rounding it up at seven hundred.

Maybe a third are dead.

But out there , today are several hundred people who could help the victims. They could tell the awful story of state involvement in supposedly terrorist murders.

Only a few  have spoken out.

Why? Like the Cosa Nostra , the silent ones  are motivated by money. Patten payments. Big pensions.

Before turning attention and criticism on the republicans, victims should ask themselves-why the silence? The answer is that the relevant RUC officers and civil servants are corrupt. Like the Mafia.

Who? Think of Flanagan, White, McQuillan , Matchett and Mains, all still earning  from the misfortunes of the victims and failing to tell the truth.

This is the real tragedy of the Troubles.

Lindsay Redpath

This woman lives in Donacloney. She is a “single parent” having had a son, Ben, young and out of wedlock. No opprobrium there…we have all made mistakes.

She is a social worker. She worked for the state and a private entity. She is also connected to Glentoran football club, oddly enough in some capacity re children.

She is dangerous. She is bonkers. She was all over me like a bad suit. I made the mistake of falling for her, though she was 30 years my junior.

She told me that her brother in law worked for MI5. He does. That put his life at risk.

Worse than that , she told me  the sexual details of a patient in a Lurgan GP practice where her mother worked. She said her mother had given her the information. The point was that this woman was then  a partner [ and now wife] of her former fiancee. She didn’t like that . Hell hath no fury…The GP practice covered it up with the connivance of the insurers, but mother retired soon thereafter. I hope your details are not there.

She told me that her fiancee demanded sex all the time and that is why she dumped him. She was telling me that while saying that she didn’t believe in sex before marriage….odd.

She and he were members of Emmanuel church in Lurgan, one of  those creepy sects that the area is prey to.

She told me that her next boyfriend was addicted to porn. She felt that she had to report him to the pastor of the church… yes, you have guessed it, the same one that produced the former boyfriend.

She then told me that she was suffering from a severe chest infection and a heart condition. She came to my house and read my messages on my phone. She is a dangerous woman , who puts herself about on social media , looking for the next boyfriend/victim.

None of the above was reported by the media in  my case by Paul Higgins, the only journalist present, even though there was no reporting  restriction and I gave evidence about it.

It’s the same restriction that failed to report that Ronnie Flanagan was a drunk  and an adulterer. No judgement on my part about that  [ I  have known him since I was 17] but why was his dangerous behaviour not in the public interest?

It didn’t suit the State.

Tell me where the noble profession of journalism was during the transition from RUC to PSNI, overseen by Flanagan, known as the “two Ronnies”.

Tell me where the public interest was in the failure to make public  the complainant in my case?

Tell me where journalists are alerting the public to a bunny boiler or to Ronnie?

The answer is that the State picks and chooses the victim  and the  press complies.

Usually the Irish News is in and about.

Hair today

The Times reports that scientists from an elite FBI forensic unit exaggerated evidence that help incriminate defendants in hundreds of trials. The evidence related to hair matching and has been found to be flawed in a significant number of cases.

I seem to recall that Ronnie Flanagan had links with Quantico, the FBI Academy. I wonder how often hair match evidence was given in Northern Irish courts and was it given by experts trained by the FBI?

I note also that Chief Constable Hamilton is said by the BBC to be a member of the FBI Law Enforcement Executive Leadership Association. [whatever that is]

Let’s hope that he, the DPP and Minister Ford spring into action and review such cases here.

Police and the bomb makers

During the course of the “troubles”, between 150 and 200 people were killed by under car booby trap bombs. In the period 1987-1992, thirty two attacks took place in the Belfast area. These devices, used almost exclusively by PIRA , reflected their cowardice and the morals of one of their leaders, Old Grandpa McGuinness, that folksy murderer who is now the Deputy First Minister.

What will  shock readers is the attitude of the RUC and PSNI to these devices. Here is what police told me:

“The intelligence picture showed there was a high degree of expertise within the Provisional IRA vested in an extremely small number of people. When the police identified these individuals they were subject of  [sic] intensive operations to target and disrupt their activities”

Imagine that instead of murder, rape was the crime. Contemplate the outcry if police said; “intelligence shows us that there are several serial rapists in the Belfast area. These people are known to us and they are the subject of intensive operations to target and disrupt their activity.”

To my knowledge, no UCBT bomb maker was ever convicted . My view is that the RUC high command did not try too hard, on orders from above.

Why do we accept this as normal?