9 August 1999. Thanks to Sean McPhilemy and Roberts Rinehart.
Source: Hardcopy of The Committee.
See related New York Times report, August 9, 1999: http://www.nytimes.com/library/tech/99/08/biztech/articles/09libel.html
The Committee Political Assassination In
Northern Ireland
Second Edition
Sean McPhilemy
Roberts Rinehart Publishers
Boulder, Colorado
It is now exactly eight years since I uncovered the scandal reported in this book. In 1991, I obtained evidence that the Royal Ulster Constabulary [RUC], the British Government's police force in Northern Ireland, was secretly running "death squads." Senior RUC officers were helping a then unknown terrorist organisation -- "the Committee" -- to assassinate Republicans, Nationalists and innocent Catholics in an effort to block any moves towards a united Ireland.
These revelations were contained in a documentary, shown on British television, in which an anonymous member of this Committee testified publicly about the murder conspiracy. He admitted that his Committee, which was composed of fifty to sixty people drawn exclusively from the Ulster Protestant community, was using two professional assassins, known as "The Jackal" and "King Rat," to kill those deemed to be "enemies of Ulster." The two assassins, he said, were routinely guided to their targets by the police. And that, he boasted, was the reason why these murders would forever remain officially "unsolved."
Immediately after the broadcast, the RUC scorned my revelations as a "hoax" -- a verdict later endorsed by The Sunday Times in London, which accused me of bribery and deception. Once it had become clear that these powerful forces, the RUC and The Sunday Times, had seriously damaged my journalistic reputation in Britain, I took legal action to restore my good name. A libel jury may now have to decide the truth about my supposed "hoax." The case will be heard in the High Court in London in January 2000, unless the newspaper settles the action before that date.
This libel trial may be immediately followed by a second libel trial in the United States. The original version of this book, published in the U.S. in May 1998, contained the names of nineteen alleged Committee members, all of whom had been identified by my anonymous source as his co-conspirators in murder. Two of the nineteen, brothers David and Albert Prentice, have denied the allegation and launched a $100 million libel suit against me and my publishers. This action is due to be heard in the Washington, D.C. District Court in March 2000, unless the judge strikes it out before that date.
Throughout the past year, I have continued my investigation into the Committee and I have acquired a considerable amount of new information about the RUC's role in many more "unsolved" murders. A former RUC officer, who helped his police colleagues to carry out bombings, shootings and acts of terrorism directed against the general Catholic population, has explained to me that the RUC was corrupted to the highest levels long before the emergence of the Committee. A serving RUC officer, who read my book, contacted me in England with useful information. These officers may hold a few surprises for the RUC if any of them can be persuaded to testify, under oath, in either or both of the libel trials. Other sources have corroborated their disclosures. As a result, this paperback edition contains, for the first time, the names of RUC officers and Loyalist terrorists who together committed many more murders between 1973 and 1997, nearly all of which still remain officially "unsolved." This edition contains new information on:
* the bomb attacks on Dublin and Monaghan on the same day in May 1974, when thirty-three people were killed and many others seriously injured. Loyalist terrorists had driven their bombs across the border from County Armagh into the Irish Republic. The Dublin bombs were detonated during the rush hour to cause maximum casualties. All the bombs had been assembled at the home of a serving RUC Reserve officer and the explosives had been supplied by a member of the Ulster Defence Regiment [UDR], who was also working closely with British Military Intelligence. The names of some of the culprits are listed in Chapter 13.* bomb and machine-gun attacks on Catholics, carried out by RUC and UDR officers, with the assistance of Loyalist paramilitaries. These attacks caused several deaths and serious injuries to innocent civilians on both sides of the border. Some of those responsible for these "unsolved" crimes are identified in Chapter 13.
* the notorious Loyalist assassin Robin Jackson, "The Jackal," who was responsible for the murder of at least 100 people between 1973 and 1996. This assassin was protected and "handled" by RUC Special Branch throughout his career and, as a result, nearly all of the murders committed by Jackson remain offficially "unsolved." The names of many of his victims, along with names of those who helped him commit his crimes, are published here for the first time. [See Appendix 6.]
* some of the most notorious Loyalist atrocities and murders of Catholics in recent years. Although these crimes remain "unsolved" by the RUC, I have been able to identify the assassins. Their names are listed in Appendix 6. One of these Loyalist killers, Mark Fulton, is the nephew of David and Albert Prentice. Although the Prentices deny membership of the Committee or sponsorship of Loyalist terrorism, Albert Prentice has admitted under oath that he gave financial support to the Mark Fulton family. He claims the money went to feed Mark Fulton's children. [See Appendix 6.]
Life imprisonment is the mandatory sentence upon conviction for murder in the United Kingdom. So it was only to be expected that the nineteen alleged Committee members identified in this book would protest their innocence of the murders attributed to them. Nor was it a great surprise when the Committee's defender in the British media and in the House of Commons, David Trimble MP, wrote to the publishers, Roberts Rinehart, in an effort to prevent the book's publication. He wrote:
The alleged Committee is a myth. The persons named as members are what they are, namely respected members of the police, army and business community.... I must therefore call on you to drop immediately this publication.
Trimble's intervention was futile and it was also foolish, because it turns out that our key source, whose name became public in late 1992, was for years a prominent member of Trimble's Ulster Unionist Party in his own constituency, Upper Bann. When Trimble wrote to Roberts Rinehart, therefore, he would certainly have known that the information about the Committee's existence and murderous activities had been given to me, back in 1991, by one of his own political associates. Trimble's sensitivity on this issue became evident at the St. Patrick's Day celebrations in Washington, D.C. this year, when he exploded with rage at Roberts Rinehart's chief executive.
Trimble will soon be required to confront these issues in a more tranquil manner when my attorney takes his deposition, under oath, in the American libel case. After Trimble has answered our auestions we will, perhaps, learn for the first time the full extent of his knowledge of the murder conspiracy and of his involvement with the Committee.
It has become increasingly clear in recent months that the main allegation in this book -- the RUC's systematic collusion, over many years, with Loyalist terrorists in the murder of Republicans and politically uninvolved Catholics -- is absolutely true. Loyalist ex-terrorists have publicly admitted, in recent weeks, that RUC offcers secretly helped them to identify their targets and carry out their killings. One ex-terrorist, Bobby Philpott, when interviewed by BBC Television was even prepared to admit that RUC collusion had been indispensable to the success of the Loyalist assassination campaign. And I have learned that a Committee member, who discussed privately my book with one of my most trusted sources, unwittingly confirmed to this person that its contents are, in all essentials, true.
Despite these admissions and the mounting evidence of RUC collusion in murder, the British "New Labour" Government has -- so far -- done everything possible to prevent the truth about this scandal from becoming publicly known. For example, the United Nations Rapporteur's demand for an independent inquiry into the murder of human rights lawyer Pat Finucane was immediately refused; and the efforts by the family of murdered RUC Sergeant Joseph Campbell to discover the truth about their father's killing have been largely ignored. And even though over 30,000 copies of this book have been sold since May 1998, I have yet to receive a single letter or telephone call from any British Government official about the numerous "unsolved" murders documented therein.
One person who was, in sharp contrast, extremely interested in my revelations and determined to do something about them was a brave and brilliant lawyer, Rosemary Nelson. By the time I first met her in 1994, Rosemary had become the single most effective crusader for justice within the notorious "murder triangle," the area which surrounds her home town, Lurgan, County Armagh. Rosemary's search for the truth and her dedication to her clients had made her the obvious choice as legal representative for the families of many Catholic victims of the RUC/Loyalist death squads. She was, as I discovered, entirely trusted and relied upon by these families, including the families of some of those whose murders are discussed in this book -- Denis Carville, Sam Marshall, Rory and Gerard Cairns, Katrina Rennie, Eileen Duffy, and Brian Frizzell.
Rosemary was murdered on Monday, March 15th, 1999, when a bomb exploded under her car. This barbarous act ended the life of a loving and beloved wife, mother, daughter and sister. The solemn Requiem Mass in thanksgiving for her life, held on Thursday, March 18th, 1999, was an unforgettable occasion. The funeral service was an outpouring of affection and admiration by virtually the entire Catholic population of Lurgan, a sorrowful tribute to her achievements and a signal that the causes to which she had devoted her professional life -- exposing the truth about RUC collusion with the Loyalists and obtaining justice for the victims' families -- would be pursued with renewed vigour in the years ahead.
I hope that now, in recognition of her tireless work for justice, her admirers will support the campaign to force the British Government to set up a genuinely independent inquiry into her murder. The historic hatreds which poison the minds and hearts of so many will persist, on all sides, until everyone is forced to confront the terrible deeds they have done. Only after we have learned the truth about the crimes committed by Republicans, Loyalists, the RUC and other British security forces will there be a real prospect of forgiveness, reconciliation and peace.
Finally, readers may be interested to learn that I have sought to bring my discoveries about the Committee, the RUC and the Loyalist death squads to the attention of the British authorities. Chris Patten, who as Governor of Hong Kong had frequently condemned human rights abuses by the People's Republic of China, was appointed by the British Government, in 1998, to hold an official inquiry into the RUC, as part of the Good Friday Agreement. At the end of last year, I wrote to Mr. Patten offering him the evidence I have uncovered about serious human rights abuses much closer to home. If he had taken up my offer I would, for example, have given him the authentic video and audio tape-recordings of one self-confessed Committee member explaining, in great detail, how RUC officers had helped the Committee to run its "death squads."
But Mr. Patten did not reply to my letter. I think it unlikely, therefore, that his forthcoming report on the RUC will have much to say about police collusion in any of the numerous "unsolved" murders of Catholics between 1973 and the late 1990s. So it will be necessary, I suggest, to study his report in the light of the revelations contained in this book. Otherwise, there is a danger that the Patten Inquiry may succeed in burying the truth about these murders and in misleading the public about the RUC's role in political assassination in Northern Ireland.
Sean McPhilemy
Oxford, England
April 1999
I had no idea what I was stepping into when, early in 1991, I began to investigate the escalating Loyalist assassination campaign in Northern Ireland. It never occurred to me that I was embarking on a project which would, between then and now, turn my life upside down and virtually destroy the successful television production company I had formed in 1986. Back in 1991, I would certainly have refused to believe what I now know to be the truth -- namely, that most of the murders of Catholics and Republicans committed in 1989, 1990 and 1991, crimes which in 1998 remain offcially "unsolved," were in fact sanctioned and organised by senior police officers belonging to the Royal Ulster Constabulary.
My first debt is to Ben Hamilton who, as a young television researcher, suggested this topic for a television documentary. His magnificent work in 1991 resulted in The Committee, which revealed the existence of a then unknown Loyalist terrorist body. I also wish to thank everyone involved in making that film. I hope that, one day, the documentary will be shown again and that my colleagues will receive the recognition they deserve.
I was helped with my investigation into collusion between the Loyalists and the "security" forces by quite a few people in Northern Ireland -- friends, journalists, lawyers, librarians and, most especially, the relatives of the murder victims. I am advised that it would be unwise to identify any of them publicly. I hope they realise how grateful I am to them all.
During the past seven years, I have also relied heavily and constantly on my English friends for advice and support. When I assured them that I had been followed by MI5 or RUC agents during my research trips to Northern Ireland, that my telephone was tapped by the security services or that I was working on the biggest story of my professional life, they did not roll their eyes, shake their heads or avoid my company. They encouraged me to persevere. So I am pleased to be able publicly to thank John Plender, David Cox, Omar Hemeida, David Melvin, Sarah Brook and Ian Tomlin.
I am especially grateful to Tim Laxton who, since 1994, has helped me in countless ways to complete the investigation I began in 1991.
Tim's first career as a City accountant has left him with few illusions about what seemingly respectable people are capable of doing; so he found no difficulty in believing that the Loyalist assassination campaign was being run by affluent and well-connected individuals, including a banker, a lawyer, an accountant, a clergyman and the owners of some of the largest businesses in Northern Ireland.
During the lengthy legal proceedings which followed the broadcast of The Committee, I had some of the finest legal brains in England on my side. Publication of this book may, I suspect, lead me to call on their services again. I am deeply grateful to Jonathan Caplan QC, James Price QC, Matthew Nicklin, Lord Williams of Mostyn QC and to my solicitors at Bindman & Partners -- Geoffrey Bindman, Verity Danziger, Lynn Knowles, Anna Rowland, and Nick Braithwaite. They have all taught me that the law holds no terrors for anyone who has acted in the public interest and who has told the truth.
Finally and ironically, I wish to thank one of the murder conspirators whose elaborate attempt at deception, which lasted for almost eighteen months, served only to intensify my resolve to persevere until I had uncovered the full story. Committee member Ken Kerr appeared to be experiencing a death-bed conversion, his imminent demise from colon cancer being -- supposedly -- his reason for "helping" me. Sadly, his expressions of remorse proved to be bogus, his "revelations" to be false and his tape-recording of the Committee planning a murder to be a fake. His duplicity is significant only as an illustration of the lengths to which the "security" forces in Northern Ireland have been prepared to go in their efforts to sabotage this book.
I also wish to express my heartfelt thanks to my lawyer in the United States, Russell Smith. Russell defended me with great skill, some years ago, in a legal action in the USA, which had arisen over another television documentary I had made in Britain. Naturally, once I found myself under legal attack in the USA a second time, it was a great relief to find Russell on my doorstep with a generous offer of help. Throughout the past year, he has conducted the defence of the libel action brought against my publishers and me over this book and given us confidence that, in due course, he will again secure a legal victory.
When Ben Hamilton and I began our research, early in 1991, into collusion in Northern Ireland, we knew that we were embarking on a difficult assignment but neither of us envisaged that the resulting documentary The Committee -- would immerse us in years of litigation and controversy, which would blight our reputations and lead to the virtual destruction of our television production company, Box Productions. Although Ben has managed to survive the ordeal and to continue with his television career, working as a freelance researcher and director for other production companies, I felt I could not follow that course. As executive producer of the programme, the person ultimately responsible within the company for its editorial content, I felt a duty to persevere with the investigation until I had uncovered and published the full story about the Committee and its works. For the past six years, since October 1991, I have defended our journalism and pursued the story, confident that -- sooner or later -- I would uncover the truth about the murder conspiracy. Though I am aware that, even now, I have not fully realised that ambition, I have nevertheless made sufficient progress to allow me to reach firm conclusions about where responsibility rests for the deaths that resulted from the Loyaltst assassination campaign in 1989, 1990, 1991 and beyond.1
Before presenting those conclusions and examining the appropriate response to the revelations disclosed in this book, I believe it is appropriate to pause and reflect on a part of the commentary of The Committee, words which I remember writing in the summer of 1991, when the Loyalist assassination campaign was at its height. I wrote them to provide a context which was intended to explain the reasons why the Committee members had felt impelled to act as they did. For we must not forget that the Loyalist terrorism was, in large part, a reaction to the IRA's inhuman and inexcusable conduct over the previous twenty years. The following words were spoken in the film over footage of the funeral of a murdered RUC officer, which showed his weeping family and grieving friends as they prepared to bury yet another member of the Protestant community:
During the past twenty years the Provisional IRA's ruthless terror campaign has brought bloodshed and misery to the people of Northern Ireland.Atrocity has followed atrocity -- a seemingly endless litany of violence and retaliation that has so far claimed almost three thousand lives, Protestant and Catholic.
The Royal Ulster Constabulary has been in the front line in the struggle against IRA terror. Over two hundred and sixty members of the force have been murdered -- shot by snipers, blown up by land mines or car bombs. Nearly seven thousand police officers have been injured.
The brutal murders of security force members have left a legacy of suffering and bitterness, not only within their ranks. Ninety per cent of the RUC, and almost all the locally recruited Ulster Defence Regiment are Protestants.
Those words were true in 1991 and they remain true in 1998. It was the prospect of further death and destruction, the certainty of more such RUC and UDR funerals, that led the once respectable, lawful and unremarkable citizens of Portadown, Belfast and elsewhere to volunteer their services in what became a secret Loyalist war against the IRA. Billy Abernethy's brother, for example, was murdered in a spectacularly cruel and cold-blooded manner in 1988; RUC Assistant Chief Constable Trevor Forbes OBE will have attended many funerals such as the one shown in The Committee; and I do not doubt that the Reverend Hugh Ross also officiated at the grave side of many IRA victims in County Tyrone. Yet, while I can understand the motivation of those who joined the Committee, it does not alter the fact that they freely and enthusiastically participated in murder conspiracy. In so doing, Reverend Ross became "Reverend" Ross and he, like his co-conspirators, descended to the same moral plain as those in the IRA who placed explosive devices under car bonnets, raised Armalite to end a British soldier's life or carried out any of the countless other atrocities which caused so much misery in Ireland and Britain for a generation. The fifty to sixty Committee members and their associates, some of whom are listed in Appendix One, turned themselves into terrorists and adopted exactly the same methods of those whom they so hate and despise, the Provisional IRA.
Evil deeds were committed on all sides during the thirty-year conflict in Northern Ireland. We must bear that in mind as we consider the conclusions which arise from my investigation into collusion between the Loyalists and the British security forces. One day, perhaps, those responsible for the Committee's murder campaign will plead that they would never have resorted to terrorist action, if the Provisional IRA had not tried to bomb the Ulster Protestants into a united Ireland. It will be for others, in due course, to listen to their pleas before passing judgement on their guilt and on their degree of culpability. And, after the law of men has taken its course, each and every one of them will have to answer, as we all will, to that higher authority who commands: "Thou shalt not kill." It has been my task to investigate the Committee's killings, to identify those responsible and to establish the facts about the overall murder conspiracy. Those facts can now be briefly summarised.
A secret terrorist organisation -- the Ulster Loyalist Central Co-ordinating Committee -- ran a campaign of political and sectarian assassination in the late 1980s and early 1990s. The Committee's fifty to sixty members were drawn from a wide cross-section of the Ulster Loyalist community, including the business and professional elite, the Loyalist paramilitary organisations and, most significantly, the upper echelons of the RUC and the UDR. Collusion between the Loyalists and the RUC/UDR Inner Force was formal, structured and systematic, involving an unknown but sizeable proportion of the locally recruited security services in Northern Ireland.
The Ulstermen in control of the RUC -- including two Assistant Chief Constables, one as yet unknown, the other well-known -- demonstrated that their primary loyalty was not to the British Crown but to Ulster Loyalism. The eighteen RUC Inner Force members on the Committee effectively placed the resources of both the RUC and the UDR at the disposal of that terrorist organisation. This Inner Force routinely supplied the personnel, equipment and expertise which was used with terrifying effect by the Loyalist death squads, operating under the Committee's control in 1989, 1990, 1991 and beyond. The Committee employed the services of two main assassins -- Robin Jackson [The Jackal] and Billy Wright [King Rat] -- who, guided by the RUC Inner Force and assisted by other Loyalists, carried out at least nine of the ten murders investigated for The Committee.2
Although the Committee was primarily dedicated to the murder of Irish Republicans -- Provisional IRA activists and Sinn Fein politicians -- the Loyalist conspirators were prepared, as and when they felt it necessary, either to murder or to justify the murder of entirely innocent Catholics. Denis Carville, the three "mobile sweet shop" victims -- Katrina Rennie, Eileen Duffy, Brian Frizzell -- were all murdered, as we have seen, not because they were Republican terrorists but because they were Catholics or were presumed to be so. Police officers belonging to the illegal RUC Inner Force participated in the planning and execution of each of these attacks, which is the principal reason why no-one has ever been arrested or charged with any of these crimes. At the date of writing, February 1998, all eighteen Committee murders discussed in this book remained, officially, "unsolved."
Unfortunately, the Committee's assassination campaign was not brought to a permanent end by the Channel 4 broadcast in October 1991. Thanks largely to the appointment of Chief Superintendent Jimmy Nesbitt and Inspector Chris Webster, the RUC managed to contain the scandal and to suppress the truth. The RUC's official, internal investigation exonerated all nineteen Committee members who had been identified by their self-confessed, co-conspirator, Jim Sands. As a result of this RUC coverup, all fifty to sixty murder conspirators were allowed to remain at liberty and, once they had recovered from the shock of the initial exposure, eventually to resume their murder campaign. Appendix Two lists the Committee's known murder victims, the eighteen Catholics assassinated before May 1991, together with a further thirty-one murdered by Loyalist paramilitaries between May 1991 and August 1996; the Committee's members must, in these circumstances, be regarded as the "prime suspects" for all the "unsolved" murders listed in Appendix Two. Although I have not, as yet, been able to establish the total number of assassinations for which the Committee was responsible, I am satisfied that the RUC's response to the Channel 4 broadcast resulted in the further loss of innocent Catholic lives.3
RUC Chief Constable Sir Hugh Annesley must carry responsibility for all Committee murders which occurred while he was in office, those carried out before the broadcast and, especially, those committed afterwards. For, once the RUC had received the Channel 4 dossier containing the names of nineteen Committee members, the killing ought to have been stopped immediately. Instead, as we have seen, the Chief Constable's hand-picked "investigators" -- Nesbitt and Webster-- proceeded to give their chief the verdict he had himself publicly announced before setting up their "Inquiry," a verdict he reiterated in 1992: "the [programme's] allegation of an Inner Circle/Inner Force within the RUC was an invention . . . there is no overall, organised Committee . . . the allegations . . . are without foundation."4 The Chief Constable's failure to hold a genuinely independent investigation, one which could have established the truth about the murder conspiracy, allowed the guilty to go unpunished and condemned the innocent -- the Committee's future victims -- to avoidable, violent deaths. The British Conservative Government is equally responsible because, as the ultimate legal authority in Northern Ireland, it could and ought also to have insisted on a thorough search for the truth.
The RUC's verdict that the programme had been a "hoax" -- or, in Nesbitt's indelicate phraseology, "a complete and utter lot of balls" -- was enthusiastically promoted, as we have seen, in a "dirty tricks" campaign by the Sunday Express and The Sunday Times. Virulent propaganda against the programme and the programme makers intimidated Channel 4 into a
The consequences for the RUC are, as I have already made clear, potentially devastating and terminal. Abernethy's Committee could not have conducted its campaign of political assassination\without the widespread and systematic collusion described by Sands and documented in this book. It is, perhaps, not surprising that the RUC death squads run by the Committee were supervised by the same police officer who brought the RUC into such disrepute in the early 1980s, Assistant Chief Constable Trevor "shoot-to-kill" Forbes OBE. Forbes's role on the Committee gives us an insight into the true character of the RUC during the long period he ran Special Branch in the 1980s. This insight is reinforced by my discovery of how RUC Chief Constable Sir John Hermon responded to the murder of one of the few Catholic sergeants in his force, Joseph Campbell; Hermon deceived the dead officer's widow over the fact that RUC Special Branch "hit man" Robin Jackson had committed the murder. The RUC shaped and stamped by Hermon and Forbes is the RUC which contained and still contains the Inner Force.
So who will arrest the murder conspirators? Will Abernethy and his friends continue to get away with murder? Will the RUC be able to ride out the storm? The answers will depend on how this book is received. The RUC will respond as before. Just as the programme was a "hoax," so my book will be a "fabrication." My motives, my sources and my revelations will all be challenged. Jim Sands and Ken Kerr will, no doubt, be "interviewed" by Liam Clarke and Barrie Penrose. There will be libel threats and, perhaps, worse. But my reply to the RUC will be simple and short. "Why are all eighteen murders still officially "unsolved"?"
Finally, this scandal has much to teach us about the proper role of the journalist in a democratic society and vividly demonstrates the necessity of having a legal framework which enables the journalist to expose corruption of the kind we found to exist within the RUC. Information about such corruption, especially within the sensitive area of State Security and Intelligence, is only ever likely to be disclosed to a journalist in confidence and, if the law prevents the journalist from giving a source an absolute guarantee of confidentiality, the corruption is likely to continue unchecked; if, in 1991, we had not promised Sands that we would keep his name secret, he would not have agreed to the interview -- and, as a result, the Committee's assassination campaign would have continued unhindered. So it was right to give Sands the undertaking he demanded and, having done so, it would have been wrong to betray him by disclosing his name after the broadcast -- even if a different police force had been appointed to hold a genuine inquiry.
It would, of course, have been doubly wrong to betray him to a bogus inquiry team. For, as we now know, there was never the remotest prospect that the Nesbitt Inquiry would publish the truth about the Committee or RUC/Loyalist collusion. The reader will recall Nesbitt's hypocritical performance in court as, under oath, he sought to persuade Judge Clarkson that the RUC was, despite the judge's express misgivings on the matter, genuinely investigating itself. The reader may recall his cross-examination by the Crown's barrister, Mr. David Calvert-Smith, who suggested to him that our defence of Source A was a scandalous obstruction of vigorous law enforcement.
Calvert-Smith: What about Source A and his importance or otherwise to the investigation?Nesbitt: Source A is crucial to the investigation, your Honour.
Calvert-Smith: Because?
Nesbitt: Because, your Honour, he alleges that he had knowledge of and took part in the planning of acts of murder and other terrorist crimes; that he had knowledge of other persons who had taken part in these crimes and of members of the Royal Ulster Constabulary who were also accomplices in these matters.
We can now see that, with those answers, Nesbitt was deceiving the court into believing that he was holding a genuine inquiry when, in fact, he was doing his utmost to help the conspirators, the "aristocrats" who had been. in his own words, "planning acts of murder and other terrorist crimes."5
My discoveries about the real nature of Nesbitt's "Inquiry" have reinforced my conviction that we were, in 1992, totally justified in refusing to betray Source A, as Lord Woolf, Mr. Justice Pill and the Crown Prosecution Service's Mr. (now Mr. Justice!) Andrew Collins had all urged us to do. How embarrassed these distinguished lawyers ought to be when they realise that they were urging us, indeed punishing us, for our failure to assist the RUC officer in charge of protecting the murder conspirators! We should recall their learned contributions in the High Court and remind ourselves that not one of them voiced any concern over the obviously unsatisfactory fact that the RUC was being allowed to "investigate" itself; all three condemned us for failing to participate in what was a fresh scandal, the RUC's own cover-up of the original murder conspiracy.
Mr. Andrew Collins:The net result of what has happened is that there has been presented to the British public as fact, "conclusive evidence" were the words used, very grave allegations against the integrity of the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Those allegations may be complete rubbish and probably are, but nonetheless it is essential that they be investigated because if there is any truth in them a very serious situation is disclosed . . . My Lord . . . the failure to disclose the relevant information to enable the investigations properly to be carried out has -- and this was the evidence of Chief Superintendent Nesbitt before the learned judge -- resulted in the situation that the wrongdoing cannot properly be discovered and rooted out if it exists . . . It . . . nullifies the whole purpose of the investigation if this attitude is adopted. [my emphasis]6
Lord Woolf:Both companies must have appreciated what would be the consequences of the programme, that almost inevitably there would be an inquiry as a result of the programme and [Source] A's role would be crucial . . . That the immediate effect of the programme would be to undermine the confidence of the public, particularly in the Province of Northern Ireland, in the RUC and an inquiry would be essential if the damage to that confidence was to be kept within limits. It was, and should have been, obvious that if the investigations into the RUC took place . . . the security forces would inevitably want to identify [Source] A and follow up his involvement. This would be necessary if [Source] A was speaking the truth to eradicate a canker within the RUC and it would be necessary if he was not speaking the truth to show the RUC had been gravely slandered to the disadvantage of the Province . . .
Mr. Justice Pill:The result of the respondents' contempt of court is that the authorities and the courts have been deprived of the opportunity to investigate the extremely serious and inflammatory allegations which have been made. If the allegations are true, urgent and thorough investigation is required. Prosecutions would be likely. If the allegations are untrue, they should be exposed for the dangerous and pernicious falsehoods they are . . . The danger to society if falsehoods of this kind go uncorrected needs no underlining. Neither does the degree of concern to be felt if Source A is telling the truth. The respondents should not have so conducted themselves as to place themselves in the position they have, for the reasons given by My Lord [Woolf]. [my emphasis]7
All three men -- Lord Woolf, Mr. Justice Pill and Mr. (now Mr. Justice) Andrew Collins -- had condemned us for our refusal to give Source A's name to the RUC; not one of them seemed in any way bothered by the fact that the RUC was "investigating" itself; nor was any one of them prepared seriously to entertain the possibility that the RUC was so corrupt, so thoroughly imbued with Loyalist sentiment, that the official RUC "investigator" was in league with the murder conspirators. Now, as Nesbitt's own words reveal, we know -- with all due respect to Mr. Justice Pill -- that Nesbitt was not "deprived of an opportunity to investigate" but was prevented from coming to the "hoax" verdict that he was to reach much later when,