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PB October/November 2023 October/November 2023 17
I
n January 1980,the Irish Independentin
Dublin exposed the infamous and sickening
child sex abuse scandal at Kincora Boys
Home in Belfast. Almost immediately, there
were rumours that the vice ring was under
the control of British intelligence which had
exploited the children as bait in a ‘honey trap’
operation. While the public was reeling from
shock at the level and brutality of the violence the
children had had to endure, MI5 and the RUC
Special Branch set about covering-up the true
extent of what had happened.
FORGED WITNESS
STATEMENTS
Part of the cover-up involved the forgery of
witness statements.
The RUC concocted statements without
running them by some of the survivors. The
statements suited the false narrative being put
forward by the RUC and MI5, i.e, that the only
abuse was that perpetrated by the three sta
members at the home: Joe Mains, William
McGrath and Raymond Semple. These statements
were relied upon by the Terry, Hughes and Hart
inquiries into the scandal. And they all aligned
with the MI5-RUC narrative.
A mountain of evidence has since emerged that
the MI5-RUC narrative was false.
MIKE SCHNEIDER
A number of years ago, Village published an
account by a military intelligence o cer who
worked at the HQ of the British Army in Lisburn
(HQNI). He asked that we call him Michael
‘Schneider’. Schneider is German for Tailor. The
man’s real name was Michael Taylor. Taylor
appears in the Lost Boys documentary by
Alleycats. It examines the disappearance of fi ve
boys in Belfast between 1969 and 1974. The
paedophiles who were involved in the Kincora
scandal the suspects in the abduction and
murder of the boys. Joe Mains, the Warden of
Kincora, told one former resident of Kincora that
he had helped dispose of the body after cutting
it up in the tool shed at the rear of Kincora. The
tool shed was demolished very soon after the
Irish Independent story. The rest of the complex
was not knocked down until last year, after
petitions by Kincora survivors.
THE LOST BOYS
The BBC commissioned the Lost Boys
documentary but refused to broadcast it as it
exposed State involvement in the scandal. The
excuse provided was that the Hart Report of 2017
was the last word on the scandal.
In the documentary Taylor is shown looking at
a witness statement bearing his name in type. It
is not signed. MI5 furnished it to the Hart Inquiry.
The statement is a forgery which Taylor would not
have signed if it had been shown to him. It came
into existence in 1982. The documentary is wide-
ranging and, obviously, did not have the space to
delve into the nitty gritty of the Taylor a air.
Village is happy to fl esh out the story.
ARTFUL GEORGE
A key fi gure in the cover-up of the Kincora outrage
was RUC Detective Chief Inspector George
Caskey. He led a range of investigations into the
scandal between 1980 and 1985.
Caskey was a deceitful and wily operator. The
biggest problem facing him in hiding the truth
NEWS
Honest Mike Taylor, an
honourable whistleblower
The forgery of a
Kincora witness
statement by MI5
and the RUC
By David Burke
was Colin Wallace, a psychological operations
(Psyops) o cer at the British Army’s HQNI at
Lisburn. Wallace could prove that British military
intelligence not only knew about the child abuse
but that he – Wallace - had briefed journalists
about it in 1973 on the orders of his superiors.
Wallace had prepared an internal memo for his
superior Colonel Hutton on 8 November 1974.
This was to enable Hutton to brief General Peter
Leng.
Caskey connived to dismiss the Wallace memo
as a forgery.
Mike Taylor, who had access to intelligence
fi les at HQNI as part of his job, was prepared to
confi rm that the Wallace memo was authentic
and that he had seen it in 1974.
So, Caskey faced at least two living witnesses
and a document which blew apart the RUC-MI5
narrative.
Caskey’s solution was to forge a statement in
the name of Taylor which indicated that the
Wallace memo was a forgery. Taylor, however,
was an honest man. Word of this obviously
reached Caskey and his team and they decided
not to approach Taylor.
Many others at HQNI and the Ministry of
Defence in London were not so honest and went
along with the cover-up and various attacks on
Wallace.
Taylor did not see the forgery until decades
later when MI5 gave it to the Hart Inquiry and
they, in turn, passed it to Taylor. The statement
furnished to Hart was not signed but that is not
to say that the Terry and Hughes and other probes
were not shown one with a forged signature.
Mike Tylor
18 October/November 2023 October/November 2023 19
A HANDWRITTEN DOCUMENT
The purpose of the Taylor forgery was to cast
doubt on Wallace’s memo of 8 November 1974. It
was a handwritten document. Wallace kept a
photocopy of it which his solicitor typed up in
1982. It was duly handed over to the RUC. Caskey
responded by slyly claiming that two typewriters
had been used in its creation. This was largely
irrelevant as the original was handwritten. Since
only a handful of people knew the original
document had been handwritten, Caskey’s
pretence of two typewriters gave him the excuse
to dismiss the Wallace memo as a forgery.
Caskey was not even telling the truth about the
use of two typewriters. The late Paul Foot, a
renowned investigative reporter, commissioned
a forensic report which proved that only one
typewriter had been used.
THE CONTENT OF THE FORGERY
The fabricated Taylor statement contained a brief
resumé of his career including the fact that he
had: “worked as an Information O cer in the
Ministry of Defence in Northern Ireland from 1972
until 1976. The exact dates I am not sure”.
Taylor in fact worked at this post until December
1975, a date of which he was well aware.
Presumably, the prevarication in the statement
was designed to make him look indecisive and to
provide ammunition to undermine him if it
became necessary to do so later.
Taylor’s relationship with Wallace was
introduced next: “Whilst at Northern Ireland I
(worked) with the chap called Colin Wallace”.
Taylor says that he would never have used a
word such as “chap”. The phrase is, however,
typical of the type of language used by the upper-
class type of Englishman that MI5 and MI6
employed.
Signifi cantly, Taylor’s purported description of
Wallace in the forgery did not include any
reference to his Psyops role although Tayor was
well aware that Wallace carried out psychological
operations: “Colin Wallace and I were serving as
o cers in the army cadet forces and this is where
my contact with Wallace was initiated. Initially
Wallace and I were both [illegible] same grade but
later in my service with MoD, Wallace was
promoted to Senior Information O cer. Wallace
was at no time answerable to me and we were
both involved at a level in similar work”.
The forged statement also conceals the
important fact that Taylor had access to
intelligence fi les at Lisburn. Indeed, he knew
about the abuse at Kincora because he had read
some of the fi les that were fl owing into Lisburn
about the home. Yet, in the forged statement the
very opposite picture is painted. Taylor has
described to me as a “blatant lie” the following
passage: “I have been asked if I ever heard about
Kincora Boys’ home in my/any capacity
whatsoever. I have never seen any official
document to my knowledge, on Kincora Boys’
home although I do recognise as a result of the
situation that prevailed in Northern Ireland at this
time, it may have been discussed verbally. If
Wallace may have discussed Kincora with me, I
cannot remember any specifi c detail”.
The lies which Taylor has described as “balls”
kept fl owing:“The names McGrath and [John]
McKeague mean something to me, although I
cannot connect McGrath with any verbal
conversation regarding Kincora. I did not know
that McGrath worked at Kincora boys home but
his assumed association with the Protestant
Military Organisation called ‘TARA’ was on
record”.
THE OVERARCHING PURPOSE
OF THE FORGERY
The overarching purpose of the forgery emerges
next, as evidence designed to undermine the
authenticity of Wallace’s 8 November 1974
memo for Colonel Hutton and General Leng. It
was entitled “’TARA’ – Reports Regarding
Criminal Offences Associated with the
Homosexual Community in Belfast”. For the
avoidance of any confusion, the 8 November
memo is a genuine record. It revealed a deep
knowledge of the abuse at Kincora. Yet, according
to the forged Taylor statement, Taylor was meant
to have asserted that: “I have been shown a
document marked EGM3 by Detective Inspector…
To my knowledge I have never seen this document
before”.
Taylor was not presented with the memo which
included a passage about the murder of Brian
McDermott by Caskey in 1982.
McDermott’s case is in the news again because
of the Lost Boys documentary and an article I
have published on Covert History Ireland website.
A Kincora boy has come forward with details of
the child’s murder, i.e., that he was murdered by
Alan Campbell and his body was dismembered in
a shed behind Kincora on a table with a rotating
saw. His body parts were then burnt and placed
in hessian bags. Campbell and Mains then drove
to the River Lagan in Mains’ car and threw the
bags into the river.
WALLACE PLEAS FOR
HELP FOR THE BOYS.
In the truthful 8 November memo Colin Wallace
told his superiors that: “If we are to interest the
press in this matter with a view to exposing what
has been taking place and thereby stopping
further assaults on the youngsters in these
hostels, then I would strongly advise that we
make use of our own background information…
As you know I did try to develop press interest in
this matter last year but without any success…
MI5 forgery of sttement
purportedly by Mike Tylor
The Wllce Memo
RUC
Deputy
Chief
Inspector
George
Cskey
Brin McDermott nd Aln Cmpbell
18 October/November 2023 October/November 2023 19
McGRATH was himself the subject of an internal
investigation by the Belfast Corporation Welfare
Department in 1972/73, followingallegations of
more homosexual assaults on the inmates of
Kincora. One of our own sources confirmed in
1972 that a number of complaints had been
received about his behaviour and that, although
the complaints had been passed to senior welfare
sta and to the RUC no action had been taken
against him…The Rev PAISLEY is aware of the
situation but has failed to take any action
because of possible blackmail pressure owing to
his connection with MCGRATH, DAVID BROWN
and JOHN McKEAGUE…”.
Under the heading ‘conclusions and
recommendations’ in the memo, Wallace stated:
“I am far from happy with the quality of the
information available on this matter, and I am
even more unhappy because of the, as yet
unexplained, failure of the RUC or NIO to take on
the task. I find it very dicult to accept that the
RUC consistently failed to take action on such
serious allegations unless they had specifically
received some form of policy direction. Such
direction could only have come from a very high
political or police level. If that is the case then we
should be even more wary about getting involved.
On the other hand, if the allegations are true then
we should do everything possible to ensure that
the situation is not allowed to continue. The
youngsters in these hostels almost certainly
come from problem families, and it is clear that
no one will fight their case unless we do”.
Wallace indicated that members of McKeague’s
circle were implicated in the murder of little Brian
McDermott. In the conclusion section of his
report he stated: “Those responsible for the
murder of Brian McDermott must be brought to
trial before another child is killed, and if it can be
proved that there is a connection with this
homosexual group, then the RUC must be forced
to take action irrespective of who is involved.
EVERY SINGLE INQUIRY HAS
FALLEN FOR THE FORGERIES
AND THE FALSE NARRATIVE
It is an imponderable precisely how many
forgeries about Kincora were made in the 1980s
and how many reached Judge Hart’s uninquisitive
eyes and those of the other ocial inquirers.
Caskey and his team traced 104 of the 245
former residents of Kincora, or at least that was
what they claimed. According to Caskey’s team,
46 boys complained they had been abused,but
allegedly only by the sta at the home.
One former resident of Kincora is dyslexic. He
signed a statement without even knowing what
was in it.
A string of victims has since told stories about
how they were tracked, i.e., proof of the
existence of a ‘vice ring’.
Gary Hoy has described how he was tracked
around Belfast. The late Clint Massey described
how visitors, some of whom had English accents,
came to the home.
James Miller told the Hart inquiry how he and a
busload of boys had been abused in Bangor.
As early as 1982 a boy told the BBC’s Spotlight
programme that he had been abused by a senior
NIO ocial. The individual was Peter England, a
senior NIO ocial.
Yet Caskey, a thoroughly dishonest man, was
only able to find boys who had been abused by
the sta at the home.
Caskey’s legacy, along with that of his boss Sir
John Hermon, is that they covered up the State
sponsored abuse of boys and let a serial killer –
Alan Campbell – roam free for another 40 years,
unpunished, to rape and abuse other children.
Mike Taylor joins the long list of honourable
Kincora whistleblowers who never lost their moral
compass. Notably, they include a number of
British soldiers including Captain Brian Gemmell,
Captain Colin Wallace and General Leng. There
has never been a single NIO, MI5 or MI6
whistleblower. There was one RUC whistleblower
who was threatened and shut down.
MI5 MESSED WITH THE
WRONG MAN
Mike Taylor’s emergence – on the record – as a
Kincora whistleblower is an important step in
telling the truth about this scandal. His exposure
of the use of forgery will help silence those who
are still trying to push the Kincora genie back into
the bottle.
MI5 and the RUC were messing with the wrong
man when they tried to use Taylor in such an
underhand fashion.
Mike Taylor is English but married Muriel, a
woman from Antrim and settled in Northern
Ireland. In his spare time, he joined the Army
cadet force and, after the Troubles started, found
himself working full time for the British army at
HQNI. He served as a Branch Security Ocer
(BSO). Among his many duties, he worked
alongside the people in Psyops. One of his tasks
was to take care of intelligence documents
destined for storage. He handled all of the files
from the Army’s overt information service. While
a lot of highly classified covert Psyops records
were held by the Psyops unit, he nonetheless saw
many highly sensitive files. This was how he read
so much about Kincora. And what he read made
him feel sick. While he has spoken out against the
child abuse cover-up he has never divulged
anything about the reports he read about the IRA
as this was ‘respectable’ and ‘legitimate’ secret
intelligence work.
In civilian life he had worked in design. He had
studied graphic art in London and had served as
a photographer in the Army Air Corp. All of this,
and his natural flair, made him invaluable to the
Army’s NI information department. When the
army created pamphlets, his expertise proved
invaluable. He knew what would work and what
would not. He was responsible for the pamphlets
designed to get people to call the early security
force confidential hotlines. He gave the
pamphlets a professional feel that caught the
attention of the public. It will never be known how
many lives he helped save. He also became
something of a movie director for the military too.
The army often prepared footage for the television
companies which Taylor oversaw with his usual
panache. He also edited the British army
newspaper for the troops serving in Northern
Ireland, ‘Visor’. Yet another of his skills was in
handling the phone lines in the Operations Room
at Lisburn, a highly tense job at the best of times,
where he developed a great rapport with the
press.
He was once part of a successful attempt to
penetrate the security cordon around Aldergrove
airport as part of a military exercise. He and Colin
Wallac were one of the teams sent to penetrate
the security cordon. They were so successful, a
small arsenal of bombs and other lethal devices
were laid out on the ground in front of the severely
embarrassed security teams who were meant to
be safeguarding the airport.
His colleagues in Lisburn recall him as a rock.
When there was tension in the oce, he was the
man who could restore the calm – and confidence
– often with a well-chosen joke. He also had a
way of dealing with superior ocers who often
were out of their depth. Taylor had a way of
making a point when they were taking the wrong
track. He could do so without causing oence.
“He could turn a criticism into a joke, he was great
at adding a laugh”, one recalls.
He was a popular and brilliant footballer having
played at a high standard in civilian life and for
the first team at the Lisburn garrison.
There was – and remains - a bloody mindedness
to his personality. When everyone else deserted
Colin Wallace, he stuck his neck out and stood by
him. He went public in the 1990s confirming that
he had seen files which contained material
designed to smear the then taoiseach, Charles
Haughey (a fictious account of Haughey
siphoning money from IRA activities.) He could
have gone along with the system but refused to
join the unethical pile-on against Wallace. That
took guts. Taylor stuck his neck out. He was never
going to do anything else.
Brin McDermott
