RUC Special Branch used UDA/UFF members as informers despite them being linked to crimes including murder, an investigation has found.
The finding is just one of a catalogue of failings unearthed by a Police Ombudsman probe of a series of murders and attempted murders in South Belfast in the 1990s.
The 344-page report considers police actions in relation to eight loyalist attacks in which 11 people were murdered, including five people murdered at the Sean Graham Bookmakers on the Ormeau Road on February 5, 1992.
Police Ombudsman, Marie Anderson said she identified significant investigative and intelligence failures and “collusive behaviours” by the RUC.
The report found:
- Intelligence and surveillance failings led to loyalist paramilitaries obtaining military grade weaponry in a 1987 arms importation;
- A failure to warn two men of threats to their lives
- A failure to retain records and the deliberate destruction of files relating to the attack at Sean Graham Bookmakers
- The failure to maintain records about the deactivation of weapons
- Failures by Special Branch to disseminate intelligence to murder investigation teams
- An absence of control and oversight in the recruitment and management of informants.
However the report also states that the investigation “has found no evidence that police were in possession of intelligence which if acted on, could have prevented any of the attacks detailed in this public statement”.
It adds: “The complainants were also concerned that informants were protected from arrest and conviction. I have found no evidence of this during the course of this investigation.”
The incidents referred to in the report are the attempted murder of Samuel Caskey on 9 October 1990; the murder of Harry Conlon on 14 October 1991; the murder of Aidan Wallace on 22 December 1991; the murders of Coleman Doherty, Jack Duffin, Peter Magee, William McManus and 15 year old James Kennedy on 5 February 1992; the murder of Michael Gilbride on 4 November 1992; the murder of Martin Moran on 23 October 1993 (died 25 October 1993); the murder of Theresa Clinton on 14 April 1994; and the murder of Larry Brennan on 19 January 1998.
The report states that investigators “established that a number of informants within South Belfast UDA/UFF were being actively tasked by Special Branch despite there being evidence linking them to serious sectarian crimes, including murder”.
The report added that the Ombudsman had “identified eight UDA/UFF members who were linked, through intelligence, to the murders and attempted murders of 27 people” and that “all eight individuals were police informants either at the time, or subsequent to, these attacks”.
Marie Anderson added: “My investigation identified the continued use by Special Branch of a number of informants in South Belfast who were actively participating in serious criminality, including murder. This was totally unacceptable, and an illustration of how on occasion, the interests of obtaining information from informants was given precedence over the protection of the public from paramilitary crime and murder.
“I am of the view, that the absence of controls, combined with the absence of records relating to these informants, constitutes collusive behaviour.”
On the sharing of intelligence, the report stated that Special Branch “failed to share relevant intelligence which would have assisted the murder investigation teams examining the circumstances of these attacks”.
It added: “In some instances, intelligence sharing was delayed. The impact of these failings was to undermine the effectiveness of these investigations and, in turn, impeded the ability of police to bring the perpetrators of these serious crimes to justice.”
Regarding telling people they were under threat, the Ombudsman stated: “Pre-incident intelligence in relation to the murder of Mrs Clinton described an unambiguous threat against her husband, which was real and imminent. I have found no evidence that police made Mr Clinton aware of the heightened threat.”
That section referred to the 1994 murder of Theresa Clinton whose husband Jim Clinton was under threat.
The report added: “I cannot find any legitimate explanation for this deliberate inaction by police which resulted in Mr Clinton not being alerted to the imminent threat which he, and by implication his family, faced prior to the attack on his home and the murder of his wife.”
Samuel Caskey received no warning from police before loyalists attempted to murder him in October 1990. “I am of the view that this serious omission constitutes collusive behaviour,” Mrs Anderson said.
The Police Ombudsman’s investigation identified concerns about ‘deactivated’ and ‘live’ weapons being handed back to loyalist paramilitaries by police. This was despite police being aware of intelligence that these groups had the ability to make deactivated weapons operational again.
One such weapon, a Browning pistol originally stolen from the UDR by loyalist paramilitaries, had been given to an informant (Person I) described as being a ‘quartermaster’ for the UDA/UFF. Person I then made this weapon and others available to police.
Police deactivated the Browning pistol, but not the other weapons, and returned them to Person I. The Browning was subsequently reactivated and later used to murder Aidan Wallace as well as in the attack on Sean Graham’s bookmakers. Police were able to recover the other firearms before they were used in other attacks.
On the destruction of records regarding this pistol, the report adds it is “indicating a desire to avoid accountability for these sensitive and contentious activities”.
Regarding Person 1, the reports adds: “The relationship between Special Branch and Person I was characterised by a failure to confront the realities that he was withholding intelligence, reporting after the fact, and continuing his involvement in serious crime.
“Considered objectively, the release of weapons to this individual, given his history of unreliability and the potential for those weapons to be reactivated, demonstrated a disregard for the safety of members of the public by police.
“As an objective, independent observer, I find it inherently reckless that live weapons were provided to a terrorist in any circumstance.”
On the RUC’s destruction of records, the Ombudsman said: “Records of intelligence on which the RUC’s Tasking and Coordinating Group relied in directing covert investigatory measures following the attack at Sean Graham Bookmakers, were largely unavailable to my investigators.
“In respect of events that followed the attack at Sean Graham Bookmakers, the decision to destroy important relevant records is inexplicable. As a consequence, there are no records of the decision(s) not to recover the weapons and other items likely to have been used in the attack, some of which were never recovered, or not recovered until months later.
“Similarly, there are no records of the decision not to make early arrests of those in possession of these items. The recovery of this material and these arrests could well have proven key to the detection of these crimes.”
In outlining the backdrop against which the UDA activity took place, the Ombudsman added that the early 1990s saw a significant escalation in loyalist paramilitary violence.
RUC Special Branch responded to this threat by “seeking to expand their network of informants within loyalist paramilitaries, including from the UDA/UFF in south Belfast”.
Mrs Anderson added: “This led them to employ, or seek to recruit, informants who posed especially high risks due to their likely involvement in previous murders.”
Mrs Anderson acknowledged that the RUC’s use of informants “yielded some success, and potentially saved lives”. Intelligence had also led to the arrest and conviction of a number of loyalists, the report adds.
The investigation “found no evidence that police had actively sought to protect informants from arrest or prosecution”.
The Ombudsman identified a “pattern of Special Branch failing to disseminate intelligence to murder investigation teams” which “significantly impeded” the ability of police to bring perpetrators to justice.
She said that “investigative failings” were also identified in relation to the attack on Sean Graham’s in February 1992 including a “delay in recovering and forensically examining the car used in the attack, blood found on the coat of a suspect was not tested against the blood of the dead and injured, and a man suspected of having moved weapons was not arrested”.
Police also “failed to test inconsistencies in alibi evidence in relation to the murder of Theresa Clinton” in the Lower Ormeau Road and Mrs Anderson “identified serious failings which utterly compromised the evidential value of an identification parade involving a suspect in the murder”.
The report is also critical of the decision to donate the VZ58 rifle used in the attack on Sean Graham’s Bookmakers to the Imperial War Museum, which had put it on display and caused “understandable distress to the victims, survivors and their families”. That weapon was part of the 1987 arms importation of weapons which went on to be used at Sean Graham’s as well as Loughinisland and Greysteel among other attacks.
Mrs Anderson also criticised the fact that a Browning pistol used during the bookmakers attack and in the murder of Aidan Wallace, had been returned to the military. The gun had been stolen from the UDR by loyalists in January 1989.
Responding to the report, PSNI Temporary Assistant Chief Constable Jonathan Roberts said: “It is important to say that, first and foremost, I recognise the continuing distress being felt by all of the families of those killed and injured in these attacks and want to acknowledge the pain and suffering that they all continue to feel. They have suffered as a result of the Troubles and, understandably, they continue to seek answers.
“Areas of the report make uncomfortable reading and I want to offer my sincere apologies to the families of those killed and injured for the failings identified in this report. We will never seek to excuse bad policing and where criticism is reasonably made the Police Service will acknowledge and address that. There is a willingness to consider and examine police actions openly, professionally and proportionately; where there has been wrongdoing, those responsible should be held to account for their actions.
“We have recognised the deficiencies and failings that have been previously highlighted by a number of inquiries regarding the handling and dissemination of intelligence by the RUC. These have been addressed by the restructuring of our intelligence systems and processes through the formation of Crime Department. This Department is led by a single Assistant Chief Constable to ensure consistency and transparency by full and proper oversight of both the investigative and intelligence branches within a single Department.
“Policing has developed enormously over the past thirty years and the Police Service of Northern Ireland now have greatly improved policies and procedures which guide our response to potential threats and how we approach criminal investigations. Intelligence handling, training and investigative standards for detectives, forensic opportunities and family liaison processes are today are unrecognisable from what was in place at the time of these attacks.”
For more stories from where you live, visit InYourArea.
