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Jeremy Corbyn's record shows he would end the cover-up of MI5's exploitation of the rape of Irish children.

by Joseph de Búrca 11 November, 2019

While the UK’s 2019 general election will focus on Brexit, the outcome will have far-reaching implications for Buckingham Palace and Her Majesty’s intelligence services. Boris Johnson is unlikely to order a new inquiry into MI5 and MI6’s role in the abhorrent Kincora scandal, nor the role played by Lord Louis Mountbatten in it. Jeremy Corbyn has no such inhibitions. The survival of the Royal Family’s reputation and that of the UK’s intelligence services may very well depend on keeping Corbyn out of 10 Downing Street. Meanwhile, Johnson’s government has finally voted to set up a compensation scheme to aid the victims of child sex abuse in Northern Ireland and hopes the scandals they are associated with will go away. The establishment of the new scheme must not be exploited as an opportunity to consign the horrors the abuse victims suffered to history. The torture meted out to children at institutions such as Kincora Boy’s Home, Williamson House, Bawnmore and elsewhere, must not be forgotten. The abuse they suffered should not be described as ‘historic’. On the contrary, they are livid wounds on the British body politic. Some victims committed suicide. Many of the survivors lead precarious, lonely and impoverished lives as a result of their traumatic experiences. The British Government needs to tell them the truth about what happened to them as children for the sake of their mental well-being. They need closure in the form of apology, acknowledgement and the truth, not lies, insults and defamation. Judge Anthony Hart, who produced a lamentable report in 2017 about the so-called ‘historical’ abuse that took place in institutions run by the State in Northern Ireland, understood none of this. On the contrary, he was condescending and disdainful towards victims such as Richard Kerr. The ongoing Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA) in London looks like it will result in an even bigger car crash, especially as it may not proceed with its probe of Lord Greville Janner. This is incredible as Janner is beginning to look like he acted as a pimp for the British Establishment, the very issue the IICSA was set up to inquire into. There are many substantial reasons to condemn Hart’s 2017 Report and many reasons to abandon all hope that the IICSA wil unravel the seedy Anglo-Irish Vice Ring that preyd on children for decades. A fresh inquiry should be ordered into (a) the role MI5, MI6, the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) played in the original Kincora scandal and (b) the VIPs who abused Irish and British children and (c) the mammoth cover-up which persists to this day. Most particularly, Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet Secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong, should be invited to tell such an inquiry all that he knows about the cover-up. General election candidates in Northern Ireland should be asked where they stand on the issue. Naomi Long, Leader of the Alliance Party, has already displayed outstanding leadership on the issue. The DUP has multiple connections to the scandal through its former leader Ian Paisley. He was surrounded by a relay of paedophiles and pederasts who raped children in the 1960s and 1970s. Foremost among them is a notorious wife beater who raped at least one boy Village has spoken to at the Park Avenue hotel in Belfast. The Ulster Unionists have questions to answer too about a number of former Westminster MPs who served in their ranks such as their former leader, James Molyneaux. Sinn Fein and the Provisional IRA can hang their heads in shame too. They have had their own own sex abuse scandals which they mishandled badly (not to mention the incalculable number of children whose lives were destroyed by the acts of IRA bombers and gunmen). Compared to Boris Johnson, Jeremy Corbyn loathes, hates and despises MI5 and the other UK intelligence services. He has no love for the Royal Family either. Moreover, his key aide, Seumas Milne, a former journalist, has written extensively about MI5 dirty tricks. His book, ‘The Enemy Within’, first published in 1994, has now reached its fourth edition. It is an indictment of MI5’s dirty tricks campaign during the Miners’ Strike. MI5 should be afraid, very afraid that Corbyn and Milne may yet reach Downing Street. There is nothing they would rather do than grind MI5 into dust. Kincora, the Patrick Finucane assassination, collusion with Loyalist paramilitaries and the type of dirty tricks Milne has written about, will more than provide them with the ammunition they need to shut it down and replace it with an organisation that has respect for law and order. The report Judge Hart issued – insofar as Kincora and its links to the UK’s intelligence services was concerned – was riddled with mistakes and pitiful speculation. Hart was not a cunning and deceitful fraud in the tradition of Lord Widgery (who produced the first Bloody Sunday report). Instead, Hart was a basically honest yet severely naive plodder. He failed to persuade a string of crucial witnesses such as Colin Wallace and Richard Kerr to talk to him. With the benefit of hindsight, they undoubtedly took the right decision in boycotting him. Hart did not merely fail at persuading high-profile people like Wallace and Kerr to co-operate with him, he was lazy and badly informed. He skill set did not include the ability to seek out and ask key figures such as Eric Witchell and Alan Campbell – two former member of the vice ring that swirled around Kincora – to tell him the truth about what had happened. Witchell is still alive and living in London. Campbell died in June of 2017. Like Hart, it appears the London inquiry will ignore Witchell too. Hart also ignored Albert ‘Ginger’ Baker, a former member of the UDA, despite the fact he had spoken about what the UDA had known about Kincora to Ken Livingstone in the 1980s. Baker is also still alive. Livingstone wrote about what Baker told him in one of his books. Baker knows about Westminster MPs from the

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Did Thatcher sanction the Finucane murder? It is now up to PM Boris Johnson and his Home Secretary, Priti Patel, to order a full judicial inquiry into the murder of Patrick Finucane to establish whether or not Margaret Thatcher gave Sir Patrick Walker, Director-General of MI5, the green light to murder him.

by Joseph de Búrca 26 October, 2019

Update: this article was published in October 2019. One year later the British government has refused to carry out a judicial inquiry. One of the stated reasons is that the PSNI and Police Ombudsman are reviewing the case. However, no review is about to take place. Patrick Finucane’s widow has responded by saying that “as long as there is breath” in her body she will continue to seek answers about her husband’s murder and that the decision by the British government was “quite a shock” and showed “startling arrogance at ignoring the highest court in the land”, i.e. the UK Supreme Court which has ruled that an inquiry should take place. Mrs Finucane has also pointed out that Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland Secretary of State, did not go into any detail about why the decision to refuse the inquiry was made. It “does seem rather bizarre” she added “that he [Lewis] is insisting the police [will investigate]” as the PSNI later issued a statement saying there is nothing new to investigate. The Police Ombudsman has no funding for a review. In any event such a review would be pointless and it is a judicial inquiry that is required. Clearly, there are other reasons Lewis and his boss Boris Johnson are blocking an inquiry. Village’s 2019 investigation addressed some of the issues the Tories, MI5 and other elements of the British Establishment are trying to suppress. That article starts here: Introduction: Margaret Thatcher and the cold-blooded murder of an Irish lawyer On 12 February, 1989, the UDA assassinated Patrick Finucane, a highly-regarded Belfast solicitor, at his North Belfast home. Finucane, who was 38-years-old, was shot 14 times by two masked UDA gunmen who sledgehammered their way into his house. His wife Geraldine was also injured during the attack which took place while the couple was enjoying a meal with their young family. In 2019 the Supreme Court in London ruled that the British Government had failed to investigate the murder properly. The only tenable reason for this is because the murder was organised by MI5, the intelligence service attached to the Home Office. A retired Canadian judge, Peter Cory, investigated the murder on behalf of the British State. During his inquiry MI5 officers broke into his office and stole some of the evidence he had accumulated. Cory also told Geraldine Finucane that he had seen a document relevant to her husband’s case which was marked “for Cabinet eyes only”. Mrs Finucane knows no more. This raises the distinct possibility that her husband’s case was discussed in Whitehall in sinister circumstances before the murder. These revelations formed part of BBC NI’s compelling seven part Spotlight series, ‘The Secret History of the Troubles’. They have been ignored by the mainstream British media. Put simply, the finger of blame is now pointing at Margaret Thatcher. It now looks like she gave MI5 the green light to murder a perfectly respectable, law abiding lawyer. If Thatcher and her circle did not order the murder, why are the Tory top brass so terrified of an inquiry? MI5 was led by Sir Patrick Walker at the time the assassination was planned and executed. If MI5 was involved, it is inconceivable he did not call the shots – literally. When David Cameron was in 10 Downing Street he told the Finucane family that he could not order a public inquiry into the scandal. When Finucane’s brother Martin asked him why, he turned to Mrs Finucane and said: “Look, the last administration couldn’t deliver an inquiry in your husband’s case and neither can we”. According to Cameron this was because “there are people all around this place, [10 Downing Street], who won’t let it happen”. As he was saying this, he raised a finger and made a circular motion in the air. Theresa May, who was Cameron’s Home Secretary between 2010 and 2016, did not order a proper inquiry either when she took over at 10 Downing Street. The opportunity and duty to do the right thing and call one has passed to Theresa May’s successor, Boris Johnson, and his Home Secretary, Priti Patel. Yet, will they prove every bit as disdainful and corrupt as Blair, Cameron and May and continue the cover-up? Time is fast running out to hear what potentially key living witnesses have to offer about the Finucane case. The list includes Thatcher’s then Home Secretary, Douglas Hurd. Born in March 1930, he published a 524 page autobiography in 2003. Unfortunately, there is no entry under the word “Finucane” in its index. Village offers him the freedom of this website to inform our readers about what he know about the case, most particularly anything about “cabinet eyes only” documents. The evidence that continues to accumulate points to the probability that Finucane, a skilful lawyer, was targeted by the British State because he had mastered the intricacies of the Diplock Court system in NI and was representing his clients to the best of his very considerable abilities. A lot of Provos were walking free from court. In the mind of Thatcher and others in London, he had to have been a Provo and his death warrant was approved. In these circumstances, the task of assassinating him was passed to Walker and his gang of cutthroats at MI5. However, Finucane was not a Provo. On the contrary, he represented both Republicans and Loyalists. Who ever heard of a Provo securing the freedom of the Loyalist enemy? Moreover, he was married to a Protestant. Finucane was perfectly innocent of any involvement with the IRA although he was vilified as a member after his death. Insofar as the UDA was concerned, the kill-order was issued by Tommy ‘Tucker’ Lyttle, the UDA’s ‘brigadier’ or commander in West Belfast. Ian Hurst, who served with the then top secret Force Reconnaissance Unit (FRU) of the British Army, has stated “with cast iron certainty” that Lyttle was a British agent who was “handled” by the RUC’s Special Branch (RUCSB) using the codename “Rodney Stewart”. Lyttle himself

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Maurice The Mole? The Provisional IRA knew Sir Maurice Oldfield, Chief of MI6, was a homosexual. Did the Soviets know too?

by Joseph de Búrca 13 October, 2019

Forty years ago this month Margaret Thatcher sent Sir Maurice Oldfield, the former Chief of MI6, to Belfast to co-ordinate the activities of the various branches of British Intelligence in Ireland. Within a few weeks MI5 was reporting to Downing Street that he was a homosexual and an inquiry was launched to see if he had been blackmailed by the Soviets or any of Britain’s other enemies. He was soon given a clean bill of health. Kieran Conway, the former Provisional IRA Director of Intelligence in the 1970s, has confirmed to Village that the Provos knew Oldfield was gay. What, if anything, did the Soviet intelligence apparatus, the KGB, know about Oldfield’s homosexuality? More significantly, if the KGB found out, what did they do with the information? The answer is nothing despite the fact it could have destroyed him. Such inaction makes no sense as Oldfield was reputed to have been a highly effective opponent of the KGB. The notorious MI6 traitor Kim Philby described him as an officer of “high quality” and “formidable” in his memoirs. In 2017 the Hart Report into child sex abuse published details of an MI6 document which revealed a “small collection of papers in file three which relate to the relationship [Oldfield] had with the Head of the Kincora Boys’ Home (KBH) in Belfast”. The “Head” of Kincora was “Warden” Joseph Mains who abused teenage boys at Kincora and elsewhere. Joseph Mains, according to MI6 records he had a “relationship” and a “friendship” with Oldfield. PART 1: OLDFIELD AS A SECURITY RISK A DANGEROUS ATTRACTION TO YOUNG MALES Oldfield was in fact attracted to young males. The KGB could have ascertained this through routine surveillance or from its spies inside MI6 such as Kim Philby and George Blake who would have been on the lookout for blackmail material on their colleagues. There is, of course, a world of difference between being a homosexual and being attracted to underage males. However, back in the unenlightened 1970s and 1980s, few in politics would have acknowledged this important distinction. Incredible as it now seems, the mainstream print media routinely referred to the Kincora scandal as a “homosexual” one when it was nothing of the sort. In the dark days of the 1970s and 1980s those who ran British Intelligence definitely viewed a homosexual in the ranks as a security risk. Hence, when Margaret Thatcher was told about Oldfield’s sexuality, his security clearance was withdrawn while an inquiry was carried out to see if he had been compromised by the Soviets. It determined that he hadn’t. However, inquiries into the loyalty of Kim Philby, another senior MI6 officer, had failed to expose evidence of his true allegiance to the Soviet Union. Furthermore, MI5 and MI6 had let at least Anthony Blunt, Guy Burgess, Donald MacClean, John Cairncross, George Blake – all Soviet agents – run amok inside Britain’s intelligence community for decades. HER MAJESTY’S SPYMASTER Who was Maurice Oldfield and what was he capable of? When ‘The Troubles’ erupted, Oldfield was Deputy Chief of MI6. He assumed control of Irish affairs because his Chief, Sir John Rennie, did not share the same experience as he in the dark arts of the secret world. Rennie, who had been a surprise appointment as Chief of MI6, had a diplomatic and propaganda background whereas Oldfield had participated in deception campaigns during WW2; fought terrorism in Palestine after it; monitored the flow of weapons and money to the communist guerrillas fighting the British in Malaya in the 1950s. And, if all this wasn’t enough to square up to the IRA, he had a good idea of what it took to run a paramilitary campaign due to his knowledge of MI6’s guerrilla campaign against Albania, something that happened in the 1950s during his stint as deputy chief of MI6’s counter espionage directorate, R5. The Albanian campaign was a disaster. Most observers believe it was betrayed from the inside. Oldfield was a tubby little man who waddled when he walked, often dressed badly and was allegedly afflicted with occasional psoriasis. He has become more famous than most of his contemporaries, probably because Alec Guinness drew on his bespectacled appearance for his celebrated portrayal of George Smiley for the BBC’s production of John Le Carre’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. The glamour of the association with Le Carrie has eclipsed the true nature of Oldfield’s character When Rennie retired prematurely in 1973 after a drug smuggling scandal in Hong Kong involving his son, Oldfield finally secured the top spot he had coveted for so long. Once in the driving seat, he steered MI6 until his retirement in early 1978 under an appropriately misleading title, ‘Head of the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Research Department’. Under Oldfield, MI6 HQ continued to be what it had always been: a haven for criminals and the sort of place where a visitor would have been well advised to wipe his or her shoes on the way out of the building. Oldfield’s retirement as MI6 Chief was not to prove the death of his career: he re-emerged from his crypt to become Ulster Security Co-ordinator at the behest of Margaret Thatcher in 1979. By then too many intelligence cooks had congregated in NI and were spoiling the spy broth. Oldfield was asked to knock heads and streamline their work. While he was in Northern Ireland MI5 discovered he was gay. An MI5 report submitted to Cabinet Secretary, Sir Robert Armstrong, on 31 March 1980 revealed that on 28 March Oldfield had after “some preliminaries” admitted he “had first been introduced to homosexuality at university and he admitted having engaged in homosexual practices, intermittently, up till the time of his acceptance of his Northern Ireland appointment. His relationships were, for the most part, with restaurant waiters and the like: he had none, he said, with (MI6) staff or agents”. In other words, Oldfield admitted that he had engaged in homosexual activity throughout his career as an MI6 officer with random individuals. A copy of

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Generation Extinction Rebellion

by admin 19 September, 2019

In 2007, in the run up to a crucial general election, I was involved in setting up a campaigning group of environmental activists which we called HEAT to campaign on climate change. We believed that a reduction in carbon emissions of 90% by 2030 was necessary to avoid the tipping point for global warming catastrophe of a rise of more than 2 degrees Centigrade above pre-industrial levels. We wanted Legislation – a law! – providing for 3% annual reductions in our greenhouse gas emissions. We arranged for a cockroach to follow then Minister for the Environment Dick Roche to highlight his civilisation-threatening carbon-profligate policies, we elevated raised helium balloons over Leinster House saying the likely new government should prioritise climate, we produced research, we beamed images on to the Department’s offices in the Custom House. We helped with a televised invasion of the Ryanair AGM and a spoof contribution to a Bord Pleanála hearing on Dublin airport expansion. Our primary stunt was baking effigies of our leading politicians in a sauna. RTE sent cameras but it got bumped off the TV news by some more pressing matter. In short I have a firm gauge on how difficult it was to engage citizens, media and politicians on climate, in 2007. HEAT became moribund without making much of an impact and various other groups including Stop Climate Change, Friends of the Earth and An Taisce have made the running without really capturing imaginations. The fault has not been theirs but that of a public that lacks the capacity to address existential threats. Twelve years later, perhaps too late, a movement is sweeping all before it. Extinction Rebellion (XR) styles itself a socio-political movement and it applies the lessons of psychology and sociology to work out what protests have worked. The idea is to use nonviolent resistance to protest against climate breakdown, biodiversity loss, and the risk of social and ecological collapse. Extinction Rebellion was established in England as recently as May 2018 with about 100 academics signing a call to action in support in October 2018 and launched at the end of October by activists from the campaign group Rising Up! including Roger Hallam, 52, famous for daubing a wall of King’s College London with the words ‘divest from oil and gas’ in 2017 as a protest against the institution’s fossil fuel investments – and avoiding a court conviction. When university security guards intervened, the veteran protester handed them home-grown salad including red mustard leaves, rocket, and rainbow chard as a gift. In November 2018, five bridges across the Thames River in London were blockaded. In April demonstrators brought parts of central London to a standstill, causing roadblocks on Waterloo Bridge, Oxford Circus and Marble Arch, while others glued themselves to trains and buildings. More than 1,000 people were arrested.In May, the Metropolitan Police said they would push for all the 1,151 people arrested – which included Olympic gold medal-winning canoeist Etienne Stott – to face charges. So far 232 files of evidence have been passed to the Crown Prosecution Service, with 180 people charged, one cautioned for outraging public decency and 32 released with no further action. Citing inspiration from grassroots movements such as Occupy, Gandhi’s Satyagraha, the suffragettes, Martin Luther King and others in the civil rights movement, Extinction Rebellion has attracted activists who have pledged to be arrested, and even to go to prison, following the mass arrest tactics of Bertrand Russell’s anti-war Committee of 100 in 1961. Activists also look to the Marriage equality, Repeal, UK Momentum and Bernie Sanders campaigns. Sanders, for example, had a strategy of immediately involving volunteers to recruit more volunteers. The movement is participatory, decentralised, and inclusive. It uses a circled hourglass, known as the Extinction Symbol, signifying that time is rapidly running out for many species. In Ireland there are small local affinity groups in Dublin, Cork, Clare, Galway, Kildare, Limerick, Derry, Leitrim, Wexford, Dingle, West Cork and Northern Ireland, and there is a steering committee, elected at a national meeting in November, to help coordinate actions, trainings and talks. The group’s demands include: Tell The Truth; Act Like It’s An Emergency; Ensure A Just Transition. It is nothing if it is not radical. Some of its principles include: WE HAVE A SHARED VISION OF CHANGE Creating a world that is fit for generations to come. WE SET OUR MISSION ON WHAT IS NECESSARY Mobilising 3.5% of the population to achieve system change – using ideas such as “Momentum-driven organising” to achieve this. WE NEED A REGENERATIVE CULTURE Creating a culture which is healthy, resilient and adaptable. WE OPENLY CHALLENGE OURSELVES AND THIS TOXIC SYSTEM Leaving our comfort zones to take action for change. WE VALUE REFLECTING AND LEARNING Following a cycle of action, reflection, learning, and planning for more action. Learning from other movements and contexts as well as our own experiences. WE WELCOME EVERYONE AND EVERY PART OF EVERYONE Working actively to create safer and more accessible spaces. WE ACTIVELY MITIGATE FOR POWER Breaking down hierarchies of power for more equitable participation. WE AVOID BLAMING AND SHAMING We live in a toxic system, but no one individual is to blame WE ARE A NON-VIOLENT NETWORK Using non-violent strategy and tactics as the most effective way to bring about change. WE ARE BASED ON AUTONOMY AND DECENTRALISATION We collectively create the structures we need to challenge power. Anyone who follows these core principles and values can take action in the name of RisingUp! In Ireland XR has pulled a number of stunts, mostly led by a small number of key activists: In May they dressed as Adam and Eve and met a receptive President at the Bloom festival. In June activists dressed in white overalls holding red flowers representing “innocent children” while others dressed like grubby politicians in cheap suits who poured blood – actually a red, sugary syrup – over them. Then more members in green overalls, to symbolise the “greenwashing” of the climate and biodiversity crisis, arrived to clean up the mess. In July, Minister for Climate Action Richard Bruton was constantly interrupted by protestors as he attempted to address a conference on forestry as a solution

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General

A Hashtag Full of Hate

by admin 10 September, 2019

Paddy Goodwin and the Holy Ghosts have just released the most compelling home-produced music video of the decade, Break for the Border. It’s an addictive and incendiary denunciation of the insanity that has precipitated and possessed Brexit, the hate-filled lunacy of Donald Trump’s anti-immigration platform and the bovine intransigence of the DUP, all intertwined by a common theme of the paranoia sparked by borders. Hands down best lyrics of the year. Find it at https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nC2Wa2j_HjM

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Robert Bradford MP murdered weeks before McGrath trial. By Joseph de Burca

by Joseph de Búrca 14 June, 2019

Lyra McKee’s book ‘Angels With Blue Faces’ is the result of a five-year investigation into what Robert Bradford MP was digging into before he was murdered. It is quite possible that she uncovered one of – if not – the most putrid British Intelligence dirty-tricks operations of the entire Troubles. If not for her, the truth about this grotesque event might have remained buried forever. Bradford, a Unionist MP, had campaigned against child pornography. What was going on at Kincora Boys’ Home clearly appalled him. He was ideally placed to inquire into the shadowy world that lurked behind Kincora as he was not merely a senior Unionist politician but also a British Israelite. The paedophile ring that preyed on the boys at Kincora – and other homes – included William McGrath, an Orangeman, friend of James Molyneaux MP, Ian Paisley MP, and other political figures. More importantly, McGrath was also a British Israelite. Once McGrath was arrested by the RUC’s Criminal Investigation Division, Bradford was in a pole position to pick up on the decades of gossip which had surrounded McGrath in Unionist political circles. The UVF, UDA, Red Hand Commando and other paramilitary groups also knew of his links to British Intelligence. The UDA even had Kincora under surveillance, an easy task as it was located at a cross roads. McGrath had also dug a hole for himself by boasting of his links to Britain’s spy agencies. By late 1981 hundreds if not thousands of Loyalists knew of McGrath’s bragging. In the very early 1970s the UVF had been allied to McGrath’s paramilitary organisation Tara but had distanced themselves precisely because of McGrath’s links to Britain’s spy agencies. Publicly, they walked out as a group from a Tara meeting on the basis that McGrath was a homosexual not a British asset because they did not want to highlight the intelligence connection. (See ‘Her Majesty’s Hatchetman’ on this website for the wider story of the UDA’s knowledge of Kincora.) Bradford and thousands of others knew all of this. Would MI5 possibly have deployed its Provisional IRA agent to murder him merely because of this? Hardly. Did they do so because as a sitting Westminster MP he could raise the issue in the House of Commons and had discovered a lot more? McGrath’s trial was set for December 1981 along with that of two other Kincora staff members. Bradford was clearly not going to interfere with a looming trial. But after it, the gloves would come off. Bradford was rubbed out a few weeks before the trial commenced. Lyra McKee’s investigation will add greatly to our knowledge of these murky events and uniquely, what Bradford was probing. Her book is now available for pre-purchase from Excalibur. —

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LYRA McKEE'S BOOK By Joseph de Burca.

by Joseph de Búrca 13 June, 2019

EXPOSING THE MOST SINISTER AND HITHERTO SUPPRESSED SCANDAL OF THE TROUBLES Lyra McKee’s book on the murder of Robert Bradford MP is to be published shortly. Copies of it can be pre-booked by visiting the website of her publishers, Excalibur. The book is called ‘Angels with Blue Faces’. Those interested would be well advised to pre-book it as it is sure to sell out quickly when it reaches the bookshops. Bradford was shot by an IRA unit in public in broad daylight in front of multiple witnesses. The faces of the hit squad were neither disguised nor concealed. They clearly believed they had little to fear from the RUC. They were never apprehended. One of the assassins has since been identified by a witness as a notorious British agent. Lyra McKee’s book will undoubtedly flesh all this out. The date upon which Bradford was murdered is crucial: 14 November 1981. At that time MI5 and MI6’s involvement in the intelligence cesspit that swirled around Kincora Boys Home, Williamson House and other tortured children’s homes in NI was still a secret, at least insofar as the public was concerned. In the background the Kincora cover-up was firing on all four cylinders. The trial of three of the staff at Kincora took place the following month. MI5 and the RUC were determined to control the evidence so that it would appear that the only abuse that had taken place was that perpetrated by the staff at the home. One key RUC Kincora investigator assaulted at least one former Kincora boy, Richard Kerr. He did so in Preston, England. Kerr had been abused by politicians, paramilitaries and others. The RUC officer told Kerr to keep away from the trial in Belfast and even threatened to arrest him for engaging in homosexual acts. Pause and think about that for a moment: the boy had been abandoned by his parents; raped by an adult male at Williamson House as an 8-year-old while clutching a soft toy, and then pimped out for the next decade to Loyalist terrorists, a high profile and still popular British TV star, a number of Tory MPs among many, many others. The RUC officer who assaulted him is alive and well. He can rely on the RUC/PSNI and MI5 to safeguard him from inquiry in return for keeping their most vile secrets under wraps. (See also ‘Kincora Survivor’ and ‘How the Anglo-Irish Vice Ring Operated’ and ‘Suffer Little Children’ on this website.) The TV star has been involved in a child charity in recent years. Richard Kerr is prepared to name him and identify the address in London where he was abused by him, to the Independent Inquiry into Child Sex Abuse. So far, it does not appear interested. Also in the months in the run up to the trial, William McGrath, the sadistic ‘Beast’ of Kincora prowled around Belfast hunting his former victims down in a vehicle driven by a group of hoods. They menaced and threatened at least one of the boys to stay silent. That victim told his story to Chris Moore who published it in his book on Kincora. The thugs were probably Tommy Lyttle’s UDA henchmen. (See ‘Her Majesty’s Hatchetman’ on this website for further details about Lyttle and MI5.) As part of the Kincora cover-up, McGrath’s friend and supporter, the Reverend Ian Paisley descended upon the Cumberland Hotel in London to bully Richard Kerr into keeping quiet. He warned him not to tell anyone about the ‘Englishmen’ who had abused the boys he knew. (See ‘Blackmailed’ on this website.) Two Englishmen, Peter England and Robert Imrie from the Northern Ireland Office were named in the House of Commons by Ken Livingstone in respect of Kincora a few years later. (See ‘MI5’s Flasher-General’ on this website.) The RUC also forged at least one witness statement purporting to be that of an Englishman with access to files on McGrath who was stationed at Lisburn Barracks where Britain’s military and civilian services were based. Village will be reporting on this in the near future. One of the most depressing Kincora stories is that of Stephen Waring. The RUC did not need to threaten him for he had committed suicide by jumping from the Monarch Belfast-Liverpool car ferry in 1977 rather than suffer any more rape. Crucially, the RUC only interviewed boys who had been abused inside the home by the staff. Richard Kerr, the boy assaulted in Preston by the RUC officer, had been one of a smaller sub group taken to the Park Avenue Hotel, the Europa Hotel, a hotel in Bangor and other venues to be abused by paramilitaries such as John McKeague and also a senior DUP figure. Stephen Waring was also part of this group. It was a quite small one. A number of them have since died – apparently by suicide – but at least two are alive. The key point of this article is that by November 1981 MI5 and the RUC’s multifaceted cover-up of Kincora was holding fast. Robert Bradford MP may have been on the verge of exposing it. Then, he was killed by the MI5-controlled hit team, the Kincora trial proceeded without exposing the MI5 dimension to the scandal. When John McKeague – the most important Loyalist terrorist of the late 1960s and early 1970s – threatened to expose what he knew shortly after the trial if he was to be arrested, he was shot dead by MI5 agents in the INLA. His death occurred in February 1982. (For more information on McKeague see ‘Profiled, The Men Who Tried to Kill Haughey’ on this website.) Joss Cardwell, the senior Unionist politician who ran Belfast’s children’s homes, committed suicide a few weeks later (or so we are led to believe) when the Kincora focus fell on him. He was a key figure in trafficking Kincora boys such as Kerr and Waring to London. It was on one such trip that the flamboyant TV star abused Kerr. The media, however, were onto the