Honest Mike Taylor, an honourable whistleblower

PB October/November 2023 October/November 2023 17

n January 1980,the Irish Independentin

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 Tylor