By David Burke. Marian Brown, a 17-year old teenager, was shot dead in Belfast in June of 1972. For nearly half a century the British Government has denied that she was killed by British soldiers. Her family campaigned for the truth for five decades with the aid of researchers and lawyers. Armed with new information from the Historical Enquiries Team report into the case, Ó Muirigh Solicitors, who acted for the Brown family, petitioned the Attorney General for a new inquest in 2018. The petition was successful. After the inquest, Ó Muirigh Solicitors initiated civil proceedings against the British Ministry of Defence (MoD). Back in 2017, the Coroner’s Office had asked Ciaran MacAirt of Paper Trail to help target archival evidence. This he did and concluded that same year that Ms. Brown had been shot by British soldiers. Paper Trail did not publish its conclusions until this morning lest it interfere with the legal action against the MoD. The MoD has now settled the action with the victim’s family. The settlement vindicates the effort of all of those involved in this pursuit of justice. Significantly, the case highlights the injustice of Boris Johnson’s attempts to thwart similar cases through legislation. If Johnson succeeds, relatives of other victims will be denied justice and closure. MacAirt’s foray into Britain’s archives allowed him to conclude in 2017 “that British Army soldiers poured fire into the area” where Ms. Brown and three other teenagers had been shot. MacAirt’s also concluded that “either the British Army believed it was firing at gunmen … and the teenagers were in the line of fire; or the British Army patrols and sanger [fortification] were responding to each other’s firing and either shot the teenagers by mistake or targeted them deliberately”. Paper Trail also felt that the “British Army did not follow its own so-called Yellow Card Rules as the soldier(s) who fired the fatal shots had no clear target, no clear line of sight, and called no warnings”. A detailed article on the shooting can now be found on the Paper Trail website at: https://www.papertrail.pro/the-killing-of-marian-brown/ The report brings to light one particularly distressing aspect of the tragedy: What makes the killing of Marian Brown more poignant is not only that the British armed forces covered up the circumstances of her death and that her family have fought for two generations for the truth, but also because Marian’s family did not know that she was pregnant at the time. Her family only discovered that she was carrying a baby when they were both killed when the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) reviewed her post-mortem files 40 years later. In a heart-breaking interview with Maurice Fitzmaurice in the Mirror, Marian’s brother, Richard, said: “It’s two people I lost that day… Our mother passed away and she never knew about the grandchild she never had.”
By David Burke. The denial of justice for political gain. Next week will see the release of the long-awaited inquest report into the Ballymurphy massacre during which British soldiers killed and wounded a large number of unarmed civilians in Belfast. The atrocity took place after the introduction of internment in August of 1971. Adding insult to inqury, the victims were vilified as gunmen and terrorists. A documentary entitled ‘The Ballymurphy Precedent’ will be broadcast on Channel 4 on Wednesday 12 May. It contains detailed re-enactments of the actions of Kitson’s and Wilford’s troops. RTE will also be showing it at a date yet to be determined. Meanwhile, the British Government led by Boris Johnson proposes to grant all British soldiers implicated in murder in Northern Ireland immunity from prosecution, contrary to the Stormont House Agreement. Incredible as this may seem in Ireland and across the globe, it has enhanced Boris Johnson’s standing in the eyes of large numbers of the British electorate. Johnson has also set himself on a collision course with the Irish Government. Taoiseach Micheál Martin has stated that: “There is an agreement in place with the British government, with the parties in Northern Ireland and indeed with victims’ groups and that is the Stormont House Agreement of 2014 and that any move from it would amount to ‘a unilateral breach of trust”’. He added: “For us the victims are the priority and the victims remain the priority. There has to be adherence to that agreement. If people have new ideas to present they have to involve all of the parties, and above all the concerns of victims irrespective of who committed the atrocities. People must be held accountable”. Johnson’s Minister for Veterans, John Mercer MP, resigned last month in protest at what then looked like the British Government’s reluctance to change the law to prevent the prosecution of British soldiers accused of murder in Northern Ireland. In his resignation statement, he said he was stepping down to “try and shift UK Government position towards looking after these people and preventing the repeated and vexatious nature of litigation against those who served is a huge task”. There have been further developments and insights into the free rein afforded to British soldiers in Northern Ireland to shoot at human targets. Last week the trial of two paratroopers accused of shooting Official IRA volunteer Joe McCann while he ran away from them collapsed. Judge James O’Hara pointed out that: “At that time, in fact until late 1973, an understanding was in place between the RUC and the Army whereby the RUC did not arrest and question, or even take witness statements from, soldiers involved in shootings such as this one. This appalling practice was designed, at least in part, to protect soldiers from being prosecuted and in very large measure it succeeded.“ Her Majesty’s Killers. The Ballymurphy Inquest report may not address the roles played in the massacre by two of the most notorious British soldiers to set foot in Northern Ireland during the Troubles, Brigadier Frank Kitson and Colonel Derek Wilford. Kitson is a counterinsurgency expert who had served in Malaya, Kenya, Cyprus and the Oman before he was sent to Northern Ireland as the brigadier in charge of the 39 Brigade area which included Belfast, 1970-72. He set up the Mobile Reaction Force (MRF) which carried out the murder of a series of unarmed civilians in Belfast in the early 1970s. Kitson’s own pen has long since exposed him as a racist and anti-Catholic bigot. He committed perjury at the Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday (January 1972) on an industrial scale. Wilford assumed command of 1 Para on 21 July 1971. 1 Para formed part of 39 Brigade. Wilford believes that virtually all Catholics in Northern Ireland are IRA supporters, and has said as much in public. He had served with the SAS for two years and trained with American paratroopers at Fort Bragg, the US Army Special Forces School before coming to Ireland. He was also a veteran of Malaya and Aden. He joined the Parachute Regiment as a company commander in 1969. Perceived as a bit of a loner, he was given to reading the classics, in their original Latin. The number of unarmed Catholic civilians murdered by 1 Para reached unprecedented levels after Wilford’s arrival. Many were shot in the back or while lying on the ground. He reported directly to Kitson. The number of unarmed Catholic civilians murdered by 1 Para reached unprecedented levels after Wilford’s arrival. Many were shot in the back or while lying on the ground. He reported directly to Kitson. Both men are still alive and unrepentant at the multiple deaths caused by their troops including those who died during the Ballymurphy massacre. Wilford took 1 Para to Derry early the following year, an event that resulted in Bloody Sunday. Wilford committed perjury at the Widgery and Saville inquiries into Bloody Sunday. He has also admitted lying to the press. He is the keeper of many secrets about that massacre. While Wilford presents himself as an officer who has always been loyal to the paratroopers who served under him on Bloody Sunday, the truth is that he has thrown them to the wolves to save his own skin. One of them is facing murder charges for his actions on Bloody Sunday. Meanwhile, Wilford cowers in Belgium. While Wilford presents himself as an officer who has always been loyal to the paratroopers who served under him on Bloody Sunday, the truth is that he has thrown them to the wolves to save his own skin. One of them is facing murder charges for his actions on Bloody Sunday. Meanwhile, Wilford cowers in Belgium. Operation Demetrius was the code name ascribed to internment which commenced on 9 August 191. 342 people were swept up on that day and taken to to makeshift camps in a series of dawn swoops by the British Army. 105 were released after two days. Instead of
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
