By Joseph de Burca.
Introduction to Village’s online pamphlet on the Colin Wallace Affair.
The Tory Government of Boris Johnson is routinely accused of deceiving the House of Commons. Many British commentators behave as if this is a new low in their democratic history. Yet, there is nothing unusual about the situation. The UK’s Parliament has been misled by ministers at the behest of Britain’s intelligence services, especially MI5 for decades. MI5 is attached to the Home Office and is responsible for internal security.
The deception of Parliament has been nowhere more evident than in the case of Colin Wallace, the man who tried to expose the notorious Kincora Boys’ Home child sex abuse scandal.
Village readers will be familiar with the case of Wallace. In the 1970s he worked at the British Army HQNI at Thiepval Barracks, Lisburn. He had a public job but also a clandestine one. On the surface, he performed public relations duties for the army. Towards this end, he briefed journalists about an array of routine military activities. His ‘open’ superior was Peter Broderick, a very senior official of the Ministry of Defence (MoD). Broderick served as the head of the Army Press Desk.
Secretly, Wallace was also reporting to Col Maurice Tugwell and later Col Geoffrey Hutton who were in charge of the Information Policy Unit (IPU) which conducted psychological operations known as ‘PsyOps’. Hutton took over from Col Tugwell in March 1973 and was in post for two years. He was in charge when Wallace left NI in February 1975.
Wallace has just issued proceedings in the High Court in Belfast with the intention of prising out further documents which are in the possession of the British government which will confirm his PsyOps role in detail.
In 1974-75 Ian Cameron of MI5 plotted against Wallace who wanted to expose the Kincora Boys’ Home scandal and was refusing to engage in smear campaigns directed against British politicians. During the course of his work, Wallace was ordered to leak certain documents to the journalist Robert Fisk. He was then disciplined for what he had done. At his disciplinary hearing, MI5 and others conspired to deceive the tribunal hearing his case. They alleged that he had only one role – his ordinary PR duties – and therefore should not have leaked anything sensitive to Fisk. Secretly, Cameron contacted the chair of the tribunal and told him that Wallace was in the UVF. Wallace, of course, had nothing to do with the UVF. Wallace lost his job. Worse still, in the 1980s he was framed for manslaughter on the basis of fabricated evidence by a corrupt Home Office pathologist who lied to the Court. The conviction was later overturned but not before Wallace spent six years in prison.
The MoD has alleged that all of the files belonging to the IPU were destroyed in 1980. The Ministry has admitted that those responsible for the destruction of the files have never been interviewed.
It is highly unlikely that the documents were actually destroyed.
In the main, this article – which is intended as an online version of the old fashioned pamphlet – has been drawn together from reports which have already appeared in Village. This account has been prepared in response to the launch of Wallace’s legal action in Belfast. The materials included in the ‘pamphlet’ merely represent a portion of the evidence which shows that Wallace has been telling the truth for decades and the MoD, NIO, Home Office, Conservative Party and Whitehall have been lying. Readers should also watch the documentary ‘The Man Who Knew Too Much’ which is available on Youtube.
More information about Colin Wallace can be found at: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colin_Wallace
WALLACE AND THE PERILOUS PANTIES
Wearing his IPU hat, Wallace and the members of his team were responsible for waging psychological warfare against Loyalist and Republican paramilitaries. It is important to bear in mind that psychological warfare is not solely about spreading false information, it is about the use of intelligence and factual information in such a way as to influence the behaviour of others. For example, one of Colin Wallace’s more amusing and notable successes was to deter female members and collaborators of the IRA from transporting explosives for the organisation. Wallace put a story into circulation that the static from the typical female pair of nylon knickers generated sufficient electricity to explode the bomb materials being carried. As a result, there was a great reluctance to transport explosives.
There was a scientific basis at the root of the story, as can be seen from a document entitled: ‘Ammunition and Explosives Safety Standards’. At pages 85-99 it stated:
Explosives. The explosives or explosive mixtures that are sensitive to static discharge (electro-static sensitivity of 0.1 joule or less) when exposed are generally primer, initiator, detonator, igniter, tracer, incendiary, and pyrotechnic mixtures.
In reality, the chances of explosions being caused by static electricity were very small.
Similarly, the PsyOps unit pointed out that the use of nitro benzene in home-made explosives was potentially carcinogenic. This claim is supported by the United States Environmental Protection Agency who considered nitro benzene a likely human carcinogen. See “Nitrobenzene CASRN 98-95-3 – IRIS – US EPA, ORD”.
An excellent account of Wallace’s exploitation of fears about devil worship stories can be watched on the Man Who Knew Too Much documentary.
THE INFORMATION RESEARCH DEPARTMENT (IRD)
The Army’s IPU was not the only organisation engaged in PsyOps. The notorious Information Research Department (IRD) was too. The IRD was part of the Foreign Office and worked closely with the British Secret Service, MI6, which is also attached to the Foreign Office. The IRD operated from a building in London called Riverbank House. The IRD was a Cold War Intelligence organisation designed to counter Soviet expansion globally. Inevitably, its staff became involved in the propaganda war in Ireland. The department’s representative in NI was Hugh Mooney, a graduate from Trinity College with Irish roots who had once worked for The Irish Times. As this story shall disclose, he was also a perjurer who spent decades telling lies to politicians and various inquiries such as that of Lord Saville into Bloody Sunday. All along, he was protected by both the MoD and the FCO both of whom were fully aware of his dishonesty.
Prior to his arrival in Ireland, Mooney had worked in Bermuda where his colonial and racist side had come to the fore, a story for another day.
Mooney belonged to the ‘Special Editorial Unit’ (SEU) of the Information Research Department (IRD).
Mooney’s boss was the IRD’s Special Operations Adviser, Hans Welser, a veteran of the WW2 Political Warfare Executive.
Although Mooney worked at Army HQ Northern Ireland under the cover title of ‘Information Adviser to the GOC’, official documents show that in 1972 he was reporting to the Director and Co-ordinator of Intelligence (DCI) at Stormont – not to the GOC. This means that his activities were known about at a very high level.
Often, the IPU and IRD worked together.
SMEARING JOHN HUME
Colin Wallace is sometimes linked erroneously – and unfairly – to some of the nastier political black propaganda operations that unfolded in the early 1970s. Significantly, Wallace was not involved in MI5’s infamous – and acknowledged – treacherous plotting against the government of Harold Wilson. It involved the multiple dissemination of smears and fake stories.
There were other PsyOps which took place in NI which had a treacherous and sinister undertone.
John Hume was the victim of a campaign of character assassination in the early 1970s perpetrated by British spies. It was spearheaded by the IRD’s Hugh Mooney.
Mooney and his IRD associates sought to depict John Hume:
- as part of a communist conspiracy to turn Ireland into Europe’s Cuba;
- as a supporter of the IRA;
- as a fundraiser for the IRA;
- as a thief who stole charitable donations;
- as a man for whom a warrant had been issued for his arrest in 1972.
There may have been other smears which have not yet been detected.
Hume visited the US for a number of reasons. One of these was on behalf of the Northern Ireland Resurgence Fund (NIRF), a charity which raised funds to encourage employment and self-help projects in Belfast. Hume was its chairman. One of its early initiatives had been to raise money to re-build Bombay Street, which rampaging Loyalist mobs had torched in 1969.
The IRD and MI6 claimed some of the money raised by the NIRF had been diverted to the IRA while Hume had carved off a slice for himself.
The IRD forged a bank account purporting to show theft from various US charities. The IRD showed a briefing paper to a select group of American reporters. It (a) linked Hume with IRA fundraisers, and (b) hinted that he had stolen money which had been donated by the Ancient Order of Hibernians (AOH) in America. According to it, Hume “received 10,000 dollars”. Scribbled alongside this in red ink was “see bank a/c”. A black and white copy of the relevant extract from the briefing paper appears in the picture below. Mooney’s handwritten note is circled by us in red.
The smear oozed its way into the Christian Science Monitor, an international publication which, while it was available on subscription, was also distributed free to influential political figures throughout the world. The story festered and spread until Hume was obliged to denounce it.
In April 1987 Barry Penrose of The Sunday Times confronted Mooney with the briefing paper. At first, he denied he had written the briefing or had seen the forged bank account. Later, he conceded the handwriting on the briefing “could be” his. Clearly, he had seen the forged bank account too. How could he have penned a note on the margin of the briefing paper about a bank account if he had not seen it?
It is likely that the briefing paper and the fraudulent bank account statement were shown to Irish-American politicians by British diplomats in Washington in 1972. The British ambassador at the time had a background in banking, Lieutenant-Colonel George Rowland Stanley Baring, 3rd Earl of Cromer.
The British Ambassador to Ireland at the time was Sir John Peck. He had run the IRD in the 1950s.
SMEARING THE CIVIL RIGHTS MOVEMENT
Mooney and the IRD had another swipe at Hume by attempting to portray the civil rights movement of which he was a leading light as a violent communist conspiracy.
Mooney generated press briefings which were shown and/or given to journalists. They were also shown to politicians by British diplomats in places such as Washington. Some of them linked the civil rights movement to the Soviet Union and the IRA as part of a Soviet conspiracy. According to it, the civil rights movement was part of a:
murder and sabotage plan, fronted by the IRA, which basically seeks to create in Ireland a socialist republic on Cuban lines. This achieved, the next step would be the drive for a British Workers’ republic.
The “Civil Rights movement” is described as being “IRA and Communist controlled”.
Mooney also claimed that:
Communist involvement in Irish political violence has been slow to reach the firm control it now exercises, but it was always there…. Soon it was staging militant demonstrations, using the front of demands for civil rights, and when the demonstrations led to street disorders the IRA came into the picture as escort for their parades.
The overall picture depicted by Mooney was that:
militant students, the civil rights bodies, the IRA, and the various Citizens Defence Committees which came into existence in Catholic areas, all had the same objective. In the words of one of their leaders ‘We don’t want reform of Northern Ireland-we want a revolution in Ireland.
VILIFYING CHARLES HAUGHEY
The IRD also attacked Fianna Fail politicians in the Republic including Charles Haughey. These sought to link him with the Provisional IRA. The IRD took copies of pamphlets produced by the Official Republican movement and republished them with additional entries designed to vilify Haughey. The smears had little impact as Haughey became leader of Fianna Fail in 1979 and served as taoisech on a number of occasions between then and 1992.
SMEARING BRITISH LABOUR LUMINARIES SUCH AS HAROLD WILSON, DENIS HEALEY, TED SHORT AND MERLYN REES AS COMMUNISTS AND IRA SUPPORTERS AND HOLDERS OF SECRET BANK ACCOUNTS.
In 1973, the Foreign Office was in the process of reducing the role of the IRD. Mooney and his colleagues saw the conflict in Northern Ireland and the industrial unrest in the UK as an opportunity to avoid those cutbacks. His document, ‘Soviets gain control over British Communists’, was an attack on the British Labour Party led by Harold Wilson in the run up to the General elections in 1974. In IRD’s view the Miners’ Strike and the ‘Three Day Week’ crisis was Communist inspired.
Mooney and others would go on to smear an array of British Labour MPs, union officials and other left-wing groups. The victims included PM Harold Wilson, Deputy PM Ed Short and Tony Benn.
Insofar as Ireland was concerned, Mooney’s main strategy was to demonstrate that the conflict in the North was Communist inspired. Village has seen some of the annotations he made on the front of a Sinn Fein Ard Fheis document linking Sinn Fein to the British Labour Party.
The IRD also forged a Bloody Sunday commemoration leaflet designed to show that certain British Labour politicians were ‘sympathetic with the IRA’.
A colleague of Colin Wallace revealed in 1990 that he had read forged documents purporting to show that Merlyn Rees “had made financial contributions to the IRA cause”. Rees subsequently became NI Secretary and later again, Home Secretary. Needless to say, the allegation was malicious.
Edward Short was Deputy Leader of the Labour Party. A similar attack to that on Hume was launched against him, namely the forgery of a bank account showing the receipt of dubious funds.
The IRD also forged a document signed by Denis Healey who served as Secretary of State for Defence under Harold Wilson. A copy of it is reproduced below. The idea was to make him look as if he was serving the interests of the Soviet Union. Healey also served as Chancellor of the Exchequer under Wilson.
SMEARING THE CARDINAL
Mooney also attacked Cardinal Conway in his John Hume finance document. This was probably done because MI6 and the IRD believed the Cardinal had failed to deal effectively with a priest who had allegedly been involved in the bombing of Claudy. The relevant part of the smear document is reproduced below:
SMEARING IAN PAISLEY
Ian Paisley was another victim of smears as part of Operation Clockwork Orange. The IRD forged share certificates and a bank account in his name. The forgeries indicated the substantial purchase of shares in Canadian companies with misappropriated funds. “I’ve got no shares anywhere”, Paisley thundered in April 1987. “But I mean it’s common knowledge put out by the dirty tricks department that I have ranches in Canada and ranches in Australia”, he added sarcastically. “That has been common parlance for years”.
In 1990 a colleague of Colin Wallace stated: “I can support everything Colin Wallace says and can confirm that the Clockwork Orange operation did include the smearing of British politicians. There were two Clockwork Orange files which were always in use during my period… I saw forged documents, for instance that the Reverend Ian Paisley had a bank account in Canada”. The forgeries were shown to gullible, lazy or compliant journalists.
SMEARING WILLIAM CRAIG
Another smear victim was William Craig MP, Leader of the Ulster Vanguard Party. It was alleged he had organised the kidnap of the Grundig executive, Thomas Niedermayer, in 1973, because he – Craig – was having an affair with Niedermayer’s wife, Ingeborg. In reality, Niedermayer was kidnapped by the IRA, who murdered him in December 1973. His decomposed remains were discovered in March 1980. One of the conduits for the Craig smear was a British Army major based at Lisburn. The smear reached the German newspaper Bild and prompted a headline which asked: “Did the consul die because of a romance?”. Craig and his wife sued Bild and received £8,000 in damages.
Colin Wallace had no hand, act or part in the Craig smear.
FROM RUSSIA WITH ROCKET LAUNCHERS
Mooney and his colleagues also created links between the IRA and the KGB. One story included an ingeniously crafted yarn that Soviet submarines were supplying guns to the IRA. A photograph taken in between Scandinavia and Scotland was published in the British press with a claim it had been shot off the Donegal coast during an operation to arm the IRA. Wallace helped plant the story on the front page of the News of the World.
IRD-inspired newspaper reports also claimed that Arab terror groups such as Black September, were arming the IRA.
THE RANGER HAMMOND PSYOP ‘DISTRACTION’ AND DESTABILISATION OPERATION
One of the most sinister and ruthless PsyOps of the early Troubles involved the manipulation of a Belfast teenager, Louis Hammond. He was lucky to survive his engagement with the dark side of the Troubles with his life.
Hammond hailed from Belfast. He joined the 2nd Battalion, Royal Irish Rangers at Watchett in Somerset, in January 1972. After the events of ‘Bloody Sunday’ in Londonderry on 30 January 1972 in which fourteen civilians were killed, attacks against soldiers in NI intensified to an unprecedented scale. After he returned home later in 1972, Hammond deserted and joined ‘E Company’ of the Provisional IRA’s 1st Battalion in West Belfast. It covered the Upper Falls, Ballymurphy and Andersonstown.
On 13 May 1972, Hammond was arrested by 2 Field Regiment, Royal Artillery, and handed over to the RUC Special Branch (RUCSB) who soon discovered that he was an Army deserter. The RUCSB offered him a ‘deal’ if he would agree to work for the Military Reaction Force (MRF). The MRF was a secret British Army unit which ran various types of undercover operations. The MRF had been set up by Brigadier Frank Kitson. MRF units ran surveillance operations, engaged in assassination of suspected IRA members and many other actions. (They even helped run brothels in Belfast.) Hammond was used as a ‘Fred’, an asset who could be taken out in a concealed vehicle to point out IRA volunteers known to him.
Although Hammond’s time as an MRF asset was short, the impact of his association with the unit would cast a long shadow. The roots of the trouble for him commenced on 22 June 1972 when the MRF shot and wounded four men, aged 18, 19, 21 and 28, on the Glen Road, Belfast. A Sgt Clive Williams of the MRF was later charged in connection with the shooting. He had used a non-standard issue Thompson submachine gun (used by the IRA at the time) in the incident. This weapon belonged to Captain Jim McGregor, then the leader of the MRF, who was also in the same vehicle as Sgt Williams. It later emerged that the ammunition for the Thompson submachine gun was supplied by the RUC.
The problem looming over the horizon for Hammond was that the media was becoming more and more interested in the MRF shooting incident.
A second problem for Hammond was the IRA’s concerns about informers in its ranks. To deal with them, the IRA had created ‘The Unknowns’. There were two cells of ‘The Unknowns’ in Belfast in 1972; one was in West Belfast commanded by Pat McClure, the other in North Belfast, commanded by Larry Marley. Marley later helped to plan the mass escape of IRA prisoners from the Maze Prison in 1983. He was shot dead by the UVF four years later.
Hammond would eventually become embroiled in an operation designed to distract the press from its interest in the MRF shootings but his involvement would eventually expose him to ‘The Unknowns’.
At around this time, the IRA had become suspicious of one of its members, Seamus Wright, and apprehended him for questioning. Wright tried to ‘buy’ his life by giving the IRA information on the MRF and also naming another IRA member, Kevin McKee, as an Army agent. When questioned by the IRA, McKee revealed some of the undercover activities being run by the MRF. These included the ‘Four Square Laundry’ and other MRF operations, including the ‘The Gemini Health Studios’ (a ‘massage parlour’) on the Antrim Road. On 2nd October 1972 a ‘Four Square Laundry’ van was ambushed by the IRA in the Twinbrook estate and the plain-clothes Army driver, Sapper Ted Stuart, was killed. Wright and McKee were later executed by the IRA. The bodies of Seamus Wright and Kevin McKee were found in Coghalstown Bog in Co Meath in 2015.
After four months working with the MRF, the British Army discovered that Louis Hammond was attempting to pass information to the IRA and in December 1972 the Army decided that he had “outlived his usefulness” to the MRF which was then undergoing a process of reorganisation. As a result, he ceased to be a member of the MRF and was relocated to London by the Army and released to stay with relatives.
In late December 1972, or early January 1973, Hammond returned to Belfast. On his return, he lived with his parents in Andersonstown and worked part-time in a local bakery. There is some confusion about what contact – if any – he may have had with the Army but it is clear he became a registered informant for the RUC Special Branch.
Hammond was about to become a pawn in a game to distract The Sunday Times from the MRF shooting by offering them a better story to occupy their time and fill the pages of their newspaper. The operation would exploit Hammond’s former status as an MRF asset. Wallace came to learn what was afoot by a rather circuitous route.
In March 1973 Col Tugwell briefed Wallace and Hugh Mooney that some members of the RUCSB were becoming increasingly annoyed by the activities of the MRF and one officer had made contact with Chris Ryder – who had good contacts with the RUC – and made him aware of the views of the Branch. In a Byzantine twist, Col Tugwell had learnt that the RUCSB had agreed to put Chris Ryder of The Sunday Times in contact with someone who was a former soldier who had then joined the IRA and who had also worked for the MRF – this later turned out to be Louis Hammond. Col Tugwell became concerned about the potential impact of what Chris Ryder might write about the MRF given the then forthcoming trial of Sgt. Clive Williams.
The operation to distract Ryder from the Sgt Williams trial was now launched with full effect.
Hugh Mooney of the IRD was deeply involved in the operation. Mooney told Wallace and Col Tugwell that he had a written report which had been created to appear as if it had come from an IRA detainee in the Maze. It was addressed to Seamus Twomey, the then Officer in Command (OC) of the PIRA in Belfast. The report alleged that IRA leaders were embezzling the proceeds of bank robberies.
Next, Mooney and Col Tugwell jointly briefed Ryder and his colleague, Paul Eddy, about the contents of the fabricated report.
It was now time to bring Hammond into play. He was placed in the path of the reporters and told to act as if he was prepared to talk to them about the embezzlement issue. The fact that he had worked with the MRF was an added attraction. Mooney told Col Tugwell that the RUCSB would brief Hammond on the contents of the report and coach him to ensure that the reporters would bring the issue up, not him.
Wallace assumes that the reporters were primed to ask Hammond about the matter. Hammond was instructed to respond by presenting the details in the report as if he knew about the scandal already from other sources. Naturally, this would appear to confirm the report’s authenticity. Mooney arranged with the two reporters to record their interview with Hammond and to send him a transcript of the recording to make sure that everything went according to plan. Hammond was probably briefed as to the specifics by his RUCSB handlers.
Shortly after the briefing, Col Tugwell left Army HQ NI to take up a posting to Tehran. Colin Wallace was given a copy of the transcript made by The Sunday Times of their discussion with Hammond. Wallace was alarmed by what he read. He told Col Tugwell’s successor, Col Hutton, that if the transcript was published in full, it would expose Hammond as the source of the story and his life would be in danger. Col Hutton agreed and asked Mooney to convey the Army’s concerns to Chris Ryder and Paul Eddy.
Something went wrong.
The Sunday Times story was published on 8 April 1973. Although it appeared from the article that the reporters had more than one source, the IRA discerned the involvement of Hammond. On 15 April 1973, the IRA arrested Hammond on Ormeau Road and interrogated him in houses in George Street and Lavinia Street where he was shot three times in the head, once in the abdomen, and left for dead in a nearby street on 29 April 1973.
The IRA member who shot Hammond is believed to be an RUCSB informant.
But the distraction operation was a success: The Sunday Times reporters had spent weeks focusing on the embezzlement story instead of researching the MRF shooting incident. Moreover, the IRA was thrown into turmoil.
On 23 June 1973 Sgt Clive Williams was acquitted of the Glen Road shootings.
Following the publication of the embezzlement story, the IRA threatened to kill Chris Ryder. As a result, the Intelligence Services moved him and his family out of Belfast and housed them in Butlins Holiday Camp in Bognor Regis. He then moved to Manchester for a number of years from where he continued to report on Northern Ireland matters.
One of the reasons Mooney was pushed out of Northern Ireland by the Director and Co-ordinator of Intelligence (DCI) at the NIO was because of the Hammond fiasco. This happened despite his efforts then and later to distance himself from the debacle.
Despite all of this, the British Government would have us believe that Colin Wallace played no role in PsyOps. Unfortunately for them, there is plenty more evidence to the contrary.
There is a lot more to the Hammond story than that outlined above. Readers interested in the case should also read Ciarain MacAirt’s article which can be accessed at: https://www.papertrail.pro/smoke-and-mirrors-the-mysterious-case-of-ranger-hammond/
MANIPULATING HAROLD WILSON SO HE MISLEADS THE HOUSE OF COMMONS
Harold Wilson became prime minister of the UK again in early 1974. He wanted to embark upon a policy of releasing detainees who had been interned. The security forces were aghast and launched a PsyOps to thwart him.
Two years earlier, the security forces had discovered IRA documents which outlined a plan to defend Belfast in the event of a breakdown in law and order. The plans showed how they hoped to defend Nationalist communities in Belfast from attacks by Loyalist paramilitaries and their supporters.
These plans were dusted down and shown to the new Labour Party Secretary of State for NI, Merlyn Rees. However, they were misrepresented to Rees. He was told that they were part of a scheme to create chaos in Belfast. He spoke to Wilson and the pair were diverted from their intended path of releasing internees. Wilson addressed the House of Commons the following morning thus:
Last night I was informed by the Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, who was in conference with senior officers of the RUC and the Army, that in the last few days the security forces in Northern Ireland have come into possession of a quantity of documents, the general purport of which I must disclose to the House.
These documents reveal a specific and calculated plan by the IRA, by means of ruthless and indiscriminate violence, to foment inter-sectarian hatred and a degree of chaos with the object of enabling the IRA to achieve a position in which it proceeds to occupy and control certain pre-designated and densely populated areas in the city of Belfast and its suburbs. The plan shows a deliberate intention to manipulate the emotions of large sections of the people by inflicting violence and hardship on them in the hope of creating a situation in which the IRA could present itself as the protector of the Catholic population.
TARA AND KINCORA
One of Colin Wallace’s most controversial activities was his attempts to destabilise a Loyalist paramilitary organisation known as TARA.
The operation against TARA had two praiseworthy features. First, it struck a blow against a violent paramilitary organisation which had multiple links to other extreme Loyalist groups such as the UVF and Red Hand Commando. It was also involved in attempts to undermine any constructive dialogue between Loyalist and Republican paramilitaries. Second, it had the potential to expose Northern Ireland’s most infamous child sexual abuse scandal. The commander of TARA was a child rapist called William McGrath. He would be convicted for child rape in 1981 as part of the prosecution of three staff members who worked at the infamous Kincora Boys’ Home in Belfast. McGrath once told one of his victims, James Miller, that he liked having sex with boys aged 10 or younger. McGrath was also an Orangeman and had been a close ally of Ian Paisley since the 1950s.
The operation Wallace and his colleagues launched against McGrath took place in 1973, although Wallace was aware of Tara from 1971. Had it succeeded, the children abused during the period 1973-1980 would have been spared the appalling sexual abuse they had to endure. The reason the operation failed will be discussed later in this article. First, let us look at how Wallace attempted to expose the scandal.
WALLACE RECEIVES INSTRUCTIONS FROM HIS REGULAR (I.E. NON CLANDESTINE) SUPERIORS TO EXPOSE TARA
In the summer of 1973 Wallace was instructed to brief the press unattributably about McGrath’s sexual preferences, his use of blackmail to force young people into homosexual practices, and the fact that he “runs a home for children on the Upper Newtownards Road [i.e. Kincora Boys’ Home].” Wallace was given a briefing paper to assist in the PsyOps against McGrath.
When Wallace tried to expose McGrath, he had the support of a string of honourable colleagues in the British Army including General Peter Leng.
The document referred to McGrath and a number of his associates including James Molyneaux MP (discussed in more detail later in this article). Molyneaux led the dominant Ulster Unionist Party (UUP), between 1979 and 1995. He was a friend of McGrath. Molyneaux was also sexually interested in young men. Molyneaux was well known not only to McGrath but to other members of TARA. When one young member left the organisation, Molyneaux had made inquiries to find out why he had departed from it.
Ian Paisley was also mentioned in the document. Wallace has explained that by 1973:
The PsyOps unit had acquired a significant amount of additional information about TARA”. They were “aware that a number of prominent TARA members were closely linked with the Rev Ian Paisley”. These included James Heyburn, Secretary of Paisley’s church; Hubert Nesbitt, who provided the land on which Paisley’s church was built; and David Brown, Deputy Editor of ‘Paisley’s Protestant Telegraph. “We also had information alleging that serving members of the RUC not only attended TARA meetings, but also were involved in the running of the organisation. There were indications that McGrath was obtaining Intelligence information from the RUC on Republicans and there were even claims that RUC stations in East Belfast had supplied Tara with firearms which had been surrendered to the police by members of the public. I do not know how reliable the latter information was, but it was sufficient to make the Army very wary of the RUC when dealing with TARA-related information.
PROOF OF WALLACE’S DUAL ROLE – THE 1973 TARA PRESS BRIEFING
Wallace retained a copy of ‘73 TPB. It described how the ‘OC’ or ‘Officer Commanding’ Tara was ‘William MCGRATH. He is a known homosexual who has conned many people into membership [of Tara] by threatening them with revealing homosexual activities which he himself initiated. He is a prominent figure in Unionist Party politics and in the Orange Order’.
Also, that McGrath “uses a non-existent evangelical mission as a front for his homosexual activities and also runs a home for children on the 236 Upper Newtownards Road, Belfast (Tel: B’fast 657838)”.
Suffice it to say, this was address and telephone number of Kincora. The document also included McGrath’s home address and telephone number. The latter information was particularly significant because McGrath had only recently move there. This shows that the Army’s information on him was very accurate.
When Peter Broderick was given ‘73 TPB, he scrawled the words “Clerks IP” across the top of it. ‘IP’ stands for Information Policy, the unit Wallace worked for. In 1990 Broderick spoke frankly to the renowned journalist Paul Foot about the ’73 TPB document. On 8 February of that year, Foot reported in the Daily Mirror that, “This week, for the first time, Peter Broderick, Wallace’s boss at the time – 1974 – confirmed to me that he saw the document (The TARA press brief used by Wallace to highlight McGrath’s homosexuality and his role in running a children’s home) and wrote on it. ‘That is certainly my writing’, he told me. ‘I saw the document and approved it’.”
Peter Broderick also confirmed this to Barry Penrose of The Sunday Times on 11 February 1990.
The document also bears the initial of Lt Col Adrian Peck who was Col Tugwell’s deputy. Although the RUC took a statement from Col Peck during the Terry Inquiry about his knowledge of Tara and McGrath, remarkably they did not ask him to explain why his initials were on Wallace’s document.
At this time, Wallace and the British Army were not aware that MI5 and MI6 were running a vile blackmail operation involving the rape of children at Kincora. This would generate a lot of trouble for Wallace later on when Ian Cameron of MI5 would derail his career. Cameron did this because Wallace was persisting in his attempts to end the child rape at Kincora.
Mooney left HQ NI at the end of 1973, so the Tara document must have been created by Army Intelligence before then.
WILLIAM McGRATH AND JAMES MOLYNEAUX
As indicated above, James Molyneaux was named in the 1973 document. His name appears in the paragraph as one of a number of “people associated with McGRATH” who were “aware of his activities”.
SIR KNOX CUNNINGHAM MP, QC
The former British Prime Minister’s Private Secretary, a Unionist MP, was also mentioned in the 1973 TARA press briefing.
James Molyneaux inherited his Westminster seat from Sir Samuel Knox Cunningham MP, QC. Molyneaux was Cunningham’s constituency agent before the latter retired from Westminster in 1970. Cunningham is also mentioned in the 1973 document.
Cunningham was once known as the ‘Muscle Queen’ because of his homosexuality and prowess as a pugilist. He became a heavyweight boxing champion at Cambridge. In later life he was elected as a Unionist MP. In the 1960s he represented South Antrim. He served as Parliamentary Private Secretary to Prime Minister Harold MacMillan, 1959-1963, and as such routinely attended Cabinet meetings at 10 Downing Street.
Knox Cunningham often stayed with the MI5 traitor and paedophile Anthony Blunt while in London and also knew Guy Burgess from their days at Cambridge. He was a rich man and lived on a 70-acre estate at Glencairn Park, and once came within an inch of becoming Grandmaster of the Orange Order.
The well-known author and whistle blower, Robin Bryans, also knew Cunningham well. Cunningham was a key participant in the Anglo-Irish Vice Ring. Bryans recalled that Cunningham “always liked to appear as the great Queen’s Counsel who knew more than anybody about everybody, especially those in my books and bed”.
Knox Cunningham knew Bryans so well he was able to influence him to alter the content of his book ‘Ulster’. When Cunningham discovered that it was due to contain a passage about internment during the IRA’s Border Campaign of the 1950s, he feared it would create a bad impression abroad and intervened: “Sir Knox Cunningham asked me to delete my reference to internment without trials and I agreed believing him to share in 1963’s atmosphere of reconciliation over sectarian hatred”.
Cunningham became involved in the World Alliance of Young Men’s Christian Association (YMCA) in 1947 and became Chairman of its National Council two years later, something which put him in charge of the YMCA in Ireland, Wales and England. His Wikipedia entry suggests that he became involved with the YMCA because of his “religious faith” but it is more likely he wanted to gain access to young men. Much of his interaction with the YMCA boys involved the sport of boxing. According to Bryans, he took Kincora boys to the YMCA in England.
Macmillan recalled Knox Cunningham fondly in his memoirs and awarded him a baronetcy in his resignation honours. Despite this, his publishing company, Macmillan, failed to publish Cunningham’s memoirs.
County Grand Master of the Orange Order, Thomas Passmore
The former County Grand Master of the Orange Order, the late Thomas Passmore also features in the 1973 document. He was an associate of Molyneaux. He was also a paedophile. An article about him on this website can be found at: Was Thomas Passmore, paedophile, politician and County Grand Master of the Belfast Loyal Orange Lodge, an MI5 agent?
Another name on the list is the Rev. Martin Smyth MP for Belfast South, 1982-2005. It would appear that he had been told about the allegations surrounding McGrath. He and Jeffrey Donaldson MP resigned the UUP whip together in 2003. Smyth tried to persuade Donaldson to stay within the UUP, but he left for the DUP at the invitation of Peter Robinson.
The 1973 press briefing document proves beyond a shadow of a doubt that Wallace worked on PsyOps and that he was encouraged by Army Intelligence to take a special interest in Kincora. The facts that a member of Army Intelligence gave the document to Wallace for dissemination to the press was confirmed in a letter from Hugh Mooney to the Foreign and Commonwealth Office on 14 December 1992. That letter was disclosed to, and ignored by, the HIA Inquiry into Kincora and other homes by Sir Anthony Hart.
IAN PAISLEY, BLACKMAILED BY McGRATH
Ian Paisley is also named in the press briefing although merely as an associate of McGrath. A detailed article about McGrath’s hold over Paisley can be found at Blackmailed? [Updated Version]
JOURNALISTS CONFIRM THEY SAW THE 1973 DOCUMENT
A number of journalists have confirmed that they either saw ‘73 TPB or received a briefing from Wallace in 1973 about Tara based on the information that was contained in it.
Kevin Dowling of The Sunday Mirror was one of them. He gave the Hart Inquiry “a copy of a telex he had sent to his editor in 1973” as a result of information furnished to him by Wallace. The telex stated that “according to Mr. Wallace the CO [i.e. Commanding Officer] of Tara was William McGrath and a homosexual” and that ‘McGrath apparently uses a non-existent evangelical mission as a front to entice young Protestant men into homosexuality. Once in they are potential blackmail victims and soldiers of Tara’.
On 13 March 1977, The Sunday Times published an article entitled: ‘The Army’s Secret War in Northern Ireland’ by David Blundy. It reported that at a British Army briefing in 1974 “at which a Sunday Times reporter was present attempts were made to link Paisley with the Protestant para-military group called Tara, a small, obscure and ineffective group as Ulster’s para-military organisations go. The Sunday Times has a copy of an Army intelligence summary on Tara which contains accurate details about its organisation. .. One member, which the summary names, is called a ‘homosexual and has conned many people into membership by threatening them with revealing homosexual activities which he had initiated’”.
The Sunday Times believed the purpose of the briefing was “to link Paisley with homosexuals and Communist sympathisers. .. Our sources say that the army has produced three anonymous documents on this theme which circulated in Belfast”.
A man called Roy Garland had been involved in TARA but had walked out in 1971 when he became aware of McGrath’s sexual activities. He then spent years trying to expose McGrath and Kincora and became another of the heroes of this appalling saga.
A handwritten note appears on the 1973 Tara Press Briefing which refers to Garland and records that “he said he resigned” from TARA. These words were added in by Hugh Mooney. And Garland had indeed left TARA. This shows that Mooney was also aware of the significance of the allegations surrounding McGrath.
Roy Garland, McGrath’s No 2 in Tara, has also confirmed that McGrath knew Molyneaux.
Even Sir Anthony Hart who led an inquiry into Kincora – and produced an error strewn report about the child abuse scandal in 2017 – had to acknowledge that the 1973 press briefing was genuine. In that report Hart doubled over in contortions to undermine Wallace, yet he was not able to deny that Wallace had warned the media about McGrath’s abuse of “young” men. In other words: the document is recognised by the British Establishment as genuine.
So, we have a string of journalists, plus Colin Wallace and Peter Broderick all confirming the authenticity of ‘73 TPB which bears the handwriting of no less a figure than Lt Col. Peck and also Hugh Mooney, who reported to the Director and Controller of Intelligence at Stormont Castle.
MI5 INTERVENE TO SAVE McGRATH
MI5 and the Northern Ireland Office (NIO) intervened to protect McGrath because he was working for them. McGrath and others were working for MI5 and or MI6. Their task was to supply boys to politicians and Loyalist terrorists so they could be blackmailed by MI5.
McGrath and the Warden of Kincora, Joseph Mains, had supplied boys to terrorists such as John McKeague, who was blackmailed and recruited by MI5 in 1976. For further details about McKeague and MI5 see: The Anglo-Irish Vice Ring Chapters 8 – 10
A senior figure within the DUP, “the Wife Beater” was also compromised by his association with McGrath and McKeague.
Enoch Powell, Sir Anthony Blunt and others were likewise involved. Kincora was merely part of a wider Anglo-Irish Vice Ring. For details about Powell see: Suffer little children
Ian Cameron of MI5 reported to Denis Payne, the Director and Co-ordinator of Intelligence (DCI) at Stormont Castle. Cameron knew precisely what was happening at Kincora. Payne too was fully aware of what was taking place at Kincora and at other children’s homes. Payne was also an MI5 officer.
Some officials at Stormont such as Peter England and John Imrie were themselves paedophiles who raped children in care in Ireland. (See also: John Imrie, MI5’s Flasher-General
Not everyone working in intelligence in NI swam in the same river of filth as MI5 and the NIO. Peter Broderick was one such person. It was he who instructed Wallace to disclose the information in the 1973 Tara Press Briefing (’73 TPB) to journalists. Moreover, years later he had the integrity to state on public record that he had initialled the Tara press briefing document. He made this admission to two journalists, Paul Foot of The Daily Mirror and Private Eye, and Barry Penrose of The Sunday Times.
Ian Cameron of MI5 and his colleagues engaged in a series of dirty tricks which resulted in the dismissal of Wallace from his role with the British Army. Broderick – a hero of this story – was also pushed out of the Ministry of Defence for telling the truth and supporting Wallace at the hearing that led to Wallace’s dismissal.
THE MI5 PLOT AGAINST WALLACE
The combination of Wallace’s attempts to end the sexual abuse at Kincora and his refusal to participate in other MI5 dirty tricks led the then head of MI5 Northern Ireland, a man called Ian Cameron, to turn the dirty tricks gun on Wallace.
Cameron’s superior, Denis Payne, was the overall head of intelligence at the NIO.
Wallace’s dealings with the journalist Robert Fisk provided Cameron with the opportunity to strike.
Fisk reported on the Troubles during the 1970s for The Times of London before it was taken over by Rupert Murdoch. He also produced a book on the 1974 Ulster Workers Council strike and another on Irish neutrality during World War II. He had the dignity and self-respect to walk away from The Times after Murdoch began to interfere with his reporting. He soon became recognised as an international authority on the Middle East among his many other achievements.
Although it was not mentioned in any of the many glowing – and well-deserved – tributes from around the globe after his death, Fisk was one of a tiny number of journalists who attempted to expose the activities of Tara.
The man who supplied Fisk with the information about Tara was Wallace.
Fisk published a report about Tara in London’s New Statesman magazine on 19 July 1976. In the report he explained that Tara had been the subject matter of a private British Army report and described it as “well-armed” with links to a Northern Ireland political party. He drew attention to the fact it was also “perfectly legal’. He then proceeded to quote from a document supplied by Wallace which read as follows: “Commanding officer uses non-existent evangelical mission as a front…Tara organised initially in platoons of 20, now probably in companies, and drawn almost exclusively from members of the Orange Order, each platoon has a sergeant/QM (quartermaster); and IO (Intelligence Officer)”.
MI5 EXPLOITS THE PROVISION OF ‘RESTRICTED’ DOCUMENTS BY COLIN WALLACE TO ROBERT FISK TO DESTROY WALLACE AND PROTECT A PAEDOPHILE NETWORK.
Cameron was based at MI5’s station at HQNI, Lisburn. He had become concerned about Wallace’s attempts to expose what had been going on at Kincora. Cameron was in overall charge of running the sordid Kincora operation at ground level in the mid-1970s.
Cameron made his move in early 1975 after Wallace sent some papers to Fisk. Crucially, Wallace had done so – as he had always done – within the terms of his job specification.
Cameron also made a formal complaint against Wallace for allegedly “breaching security by briefing the press about Tara and McGrath”. That was absurd bearing in mind that he Wallace had been requested by Army Intelligence and Peter Broderick to brief the press using that document.
Wallace has explained. “This was based on a piece that Robert Fisk wrote for The New Statesman… Cameron knew, of course, that I had been briefing the press about McGrath since 1973 at the request of my Army superiors”.
“Cameron”, Wallace believes, “was worried that my attempts to expose McGrath – at the behest of my superiors – that was a threat to what MI5 were doing with McGrath and Tara”.
Wallace has also revealed that it “was later made clear to me by a totally reliable source that the ‘leaks’ allegations were just a means of having me removed from the Province because the NIO – particularly MI5 – wanted to take full control of the so-called information war. In effect this is what happened!”.
There is irrefutable proof that Cameron was alarmed about the information which Wallace had passed to Fisk: Cameron furnished a report to MI5 in London on 22 April 1976 accusing Wallace of a breach of security for having briefed Fisk about TARA. MI5 subsequently refused to allow Ian Cameron to be interviewed by the RUC investigating Kincora.
THE HARASSMENT OF FISK BY A BRITISH ‘DIPLOMAT’ IN DUBLIN.
Fisk was harassed by British authorities after Wallace passed certain ‘restricted’ documents to him. ‘Restricted’ was the lowest level designation for these types of documents. These particular papers did not relate to Kincora, Tara nor McGrath.
Fisk was visited by a ‘diplomat’ from the British embassy in Dublin called Michael Daly. Daly had a role in monitoring the media in the Republic: he was the same ‘diplomat’ who was able to report to London details about instructions which were being issued to the editors of Irish newspapers owned by Tony O’Reilly about thwarting the political rehabilitation of Charles Haughey in the wake of the Arms Crisis, a story for another day.
The article by Fisk above – 8 February 1975 – gives his account of the harassment he experienced after Wallace passed materials to him.
A more legible copy of the 8 February report is reproduced at the end of this article.
THE MANIPULATION OF WALLACE’S DISCIPLINARY COMMITTEE
MI5 organized for Wallace to be disciplined for doing his job.
Secret meetings were held with Jock Shaw, the chairman of the disciplinary panel, and his deputy, Sir Wesley Williams, to manipulate the outcome of the case.
The Calcutt Inquiry in 1990 discovered evidence of interference. It is now believed that Cameron told Shaw and Williams that Wallace was a UVF terrorist who was leaking military secrets illegally.
MI5 manipulated events so that the tribunal came to believe that Wallace did not participate in PsyOps.
The tribunal was not given a copy of Wallace’s official PsyOps job specification.
Later again the MoD later refused to the Parliamentary Defence Select Committee to see it.
MORE IRREFUTABLE PROOF: THE LETTER TO WALLACE’S FORMER BOSS
After his tribunal hearing, Wallace wrote to his former boss at British Army HQ in Northern Ireland. The letter referred to “homosexual prostitution at a children’s home in Belfast”. The relevant extract reads as follows:
My concern now is that there may be an attempt by the Ministry [of Defence] to deny any form of official “dirty tricks” organisation existed within the Security Forces. For example, in the Ministry’s summary of my oral representations made [at an employment tribunal] to John Groves and Mr Fairbairn on 10 May reference is made in paragraph 3 to ‘actions’ which I was asked to launch during the [1974 Ulster Workers Council anti-power-sharing] strike. The word ‘actions’ appears to have been used by MOD to conceal the fact that I referred to the attempts made by the Security Service [i.e. MI5] to discredit various Loyalist politicians, including the Rev Ian Paisley [of the DUP], by the use of forged documents and by linking the MPs with loyalist paramilitary figures involved in homosexual prostitution at a children’s home in Belfast.
WALLACE’S OPERATION CLOCKWORK ORANGE NOTES
Wallace has other documents to prove his case.
One of MI5 and MI6’s darkest projects in Northern Ireland was entitled Operation Clockwork Orange. The operation went through a number of phases. It was primarily designed to counter Loyalist anti-State activities. It involved, inter alia, the collection of damaging information about DUP and other Loyalist politicians as well as paramilitaries such as John McKeague.
Wallace was asked by MI5 to assist Operation Clockwork Orange. Towards this end, he was provided with information which he recorded in his notebook. Forensic examination has proven that his notes are authentic. In December 1974 Wallace recorded the following:
Joseph Mains may be extensively involved in a prostitution ring supplying boys to hotels in Belfast and Bangor. The hotels include: Girton Lodge, Park Avenue; Stormont; Europa and the Queen’s Court in Bangor. [John] McKeague is said to use the Royal Avenue Hotel for the same purposes. Bearing in mind that the East Belfast UDA leadership use the Girton Lodge and the Park Avenue for their meetings, it is simply [not] credible that they did not know what is going on there. Note: Mains has a brother in the RUC. He also has a questionable relationship with Belfast Corporation Welfare Chairman (Cardwell) and Legal Adviser (Young).
Wallace’s Clockwork Orange notes and his September 1975 letter were furnished to the Hart Inquiry which produced a report in 2017. Judge Anthony Hart who led the inquiry clearly did not appreciate the significance of either. On their own – and at a minimum – they confirm that MI5 knew about the existence of a paedophile network involving Joseph Mains and John McKeague in Belfast and Bangor five years before it was exposed in the Irish Independent in 1980, yet did nothing to interfere with it. On the contrary, they continued to exploit it.
“MR. McKEAGUE’S PROCLIVITIES”
The NIO certainly also knew about McKeague’s sexual deviancy. Indeed, the security departments of the NIO were staffed by MI5 and MI6 officers masquerading as civil servants along with some from the MoD. On 23 May 1975 Andy Tyrie, the Supreme Commander of the UDA – who is still alive – and another UDA commander, John Orchin, held a meeting with James Allan, a senior FCO officer then attached to the NIO. According to declassified British files, during the discussion there were “some ribald discussions of Mr McKeague’s proclivities”. (CJ/43734; See also Margaret Urwin’s superb book on collusion, A State in Denial at page 139.)
DECADES OF LIES AND PERJURY.
MI5 and the Northern Ireland Office caused lie upon lie to be told in the House of Commons about the affair during the 1980s.
Wallace eventually cleared his name and received compensation for the multiple wrongs occasioned to him, but he would have to undertake a long and painful journey first. His 2021 proceedings against the MoD is a continuation of his campaign. The lowest point on his journey was his conviction for manslaughter.
WALLACE IS FRAMED FOR MANSLAUGHTER BY AN ‘EXPERT’ FROM THE HOME OFFICE WHO COMMITTED PERJURY.
After his retirement in 1975 Wallace went to live in Sussex. Shortly after the Kincora scandal erupted in January 1980, he was approached by an Irish Times journalist he had once briefed about McGrath, the Housefather at Kincora, who wanted to ask him about intelligence activities in the North. Remarkably, the journalist did not ask about McGrath or Tara. At that time, Wallace was unaware that McGrath had been arrested. In any event, a series of reports about British intelligence activities in Northern Ireland appeared in the Irish Times. None of them touched upon Kincora. Nonetheless, Cameron and John Jones, the D-G of MI5, must have feared that since Wallace was prepared to talk to journalists, he might yet spill the beans on Kincora. The only reason he had not mentioned it to the Irish Times journalist was because he had not read the reports about the scandal in the newspapers in Ireland as he was living in Sussex (in those pre-Internet days).
Shortly after this, Wallace was arrested for the manslaughter of a man in the antiques trade he knew in Sussex called Jonathan Lewis. Wallace was innocent – and the Sussex Special Branch knew it – yet false evidence was manufactured and he would go on to serve six years in prison, 1981-1987. This suited MI5’s cover-up of the scandal admirably as Wallace was now discredited and behind bars.
Lewis was found in a river. The propeller of a boat owned by a fisherman who found him fractured his skull. This fact was withheld from the jury. Instead it was alleged Wallace had fractured his skull.
Another witness, Amanda Metcalfe, saw Lewis in the pub where she worked after Wallace was meant to have killed him. She was told not to testify at the trial and did not. The other man in the pub was not Wallace.
The key piece of evidence against Wallace at his trial was provided by Dr Iain West, an unethical Home Office pathologist. He alleged that the blow which had killed Lewis had been administered by a martial arts technique Wallace had learnt as part of his military training. West later confessed that an American security source had fed him the notion. Yet, in Court he presented it to the jury as if he had a deep expert knowledge of the topic. West would have been prosecuted for this perversion of justice later but for the fact he died before justice could catch up on him.
MI5 is part of the Home Office, the same department West worked for.
The American ‘security’ official was undoubtedly an American intelligence officer. US intelligence works hand in glove with British intelligence.
Lewis was probably killed by his rivals in the antiques trade. Evidence which pointed in this direction was suppressed by corrupt officers in the Sussex Police.
In June 1998, a former Special Branch officer who was familiar with the Wallace case wrote to Paul Foot, author of the book, ‘Who Framed Colin Wallace’ saying: “I sincerely believe that Colin Wallace was ‘fitted up’ by corrupt members of the Establishment embarrassed by the events described in the early part of your book. I do not suggest for a moment that any Sussex Police officer involved in this enquiry was corrupt, because I do not believe they were, but I feel there was a hidden agenda, and that the senior officers knew a lot more about the matter than they would ever care to reveal”. If anything, the Special Branch officer was being far too kind to the Sussex Police, a contingent of which had suppressed evidence about the real killers. The conviction was quashed in 1996. Wallace received compensation.
Wallace appealed his case to the Court of Appeal. It overturned his conviction. West died soon afterwards and was not prosecuted for perjury. Had a conviction taken place, it is anyone’s guess how much of MI5’s dirty linen would have been exposed to daylight.
It is worth noting that Sir George Terry was in charge of the Sussex Police during the Wallace investigation. Shortly after Wallace was wrongfully convicted, Terry was asked by the then Northern Ireland Secretary, Sir James Prior, to lead an ‘independent’ inquiry into Kincora. Disclosed NIO documents show that Terry was actually the preferred choice of Sir John Hermon, the then Chief Constable of the RUC.
Even more incredible, the officer who led the investigation which resulted in Wallace’s wrongful conviction was appointed as one of Terry’s senior officers in the Kincora investigation team.
THE TERRY INQUIRY
Three Kincora staff members were convicted of child abuse in December 1981. After this the media started to publish reports indicating that the RUC, MI5 and MI6 had known about the scandal all along but had done nothing about it. Witnesses came forward to support these reports and the pressure mounted on the cunning and manipulative James Prior, to have the matter investigated properly.
Unlike Prior, many honourable politicians were shocked by the child abuse at Kincora and wanted to know how the RUC had failed to act on information about it. It was now known that there had been a series of complaints to the force which had been ignored and that files containing complaints had allegedly gone missing.
Sir John Hermon, the RUC Chief Constable, secretly arranged for Terry to carry out an ‘independent’ review of the RUC’s failures and report back to him. The House of Commons did not learn that Hermon played a role in the choice of the ‘independent’ investigator. This, of course, suited the RUC Special Branch, which reported to Hermon. It had been deeply involved in the scandal.
Declassified Government files reveal that there was a consensus among some of senior civil servants at the Northern Ireland Office that an Inquiry under the powerful Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act, 1921 was essential to uncover the facts about Kincora, whereas the Security Service (MI5) opposed such an initiative. A lot would depend on what would appear in Terry’s report.
Terry obliged the RUC, MI5 and MI6 by turning a blind eye to an avalanche of evidence of State collusion in Kincora. A problem arose when Terry and his team were informed by Capt. Brian Gemmell, a former military intelligence officer who had worked for MI5, that he had discovered details of the scandal but had been halted in his tracks by Cameron. By now, Cameron had left Northern Ireland and was pretending to be a civil servant at the Ministry of Defence. He refused to co-operate with the police inquiry. In his report, Terry covered up the fact that Cameron rebuffed the police.
Had Parliament been made aware that Cameron had failed to co-operate, it is not unreasonable to assume that Thatcher’s government would have been forced to set up a judicial inquiry under Tribunals of Inquiry (Evidence) Act, 1921. The absence of such information enabled James Prior to arrange for a far more restricted probe under article 54 of the tepid Health and Personal Social Services (Northern Ireland) Act 1972.
The most blatant lie in the Terry Report was where Terry alleged that military sources had been very frank with him when, in fact, they had sheltered Cameron.
Terry also ignored the fact that the notorious paedophile John McKeague, one of the North’s most sinister Loyalist terrorists, was murdered in February 1982. Village has produced a 70,000 word online book about the Anglo-Irish Vice Ring which features a detailed account of McKeagues’ career. See The Anglo-Irish Vice Ring Chapters 8 – 10 The online book makes the case that McKeague was himself an MI5 agent shot dead by other MI5 agents in the INLA as he was threatening to go public about what he knew about the Kincora scandal.
THE THWARTED HUGHES INQUIRY
Terry, of course, could not deny that the RUC had failed to act on what had been taking place at Kincora. The question for politicians after the submission of his report was what type of an enquiry should take place next.
On 18 January 1984 Prior told the House of Commons that the next step would be an enquiry led by a judge which would look at the failure of the RUC. “The Hon. Gentleman said that Sir George Terry understood why the police [i.e. the RUC] did not investigate the matter before 1980. I believe that it would be within the inquiry’s terms of reference to examine why no inquiry was instigated before 1980. This goes to the heart of much of the concern expressed in Northern Ireland.” (Ref: Hansard House of Commons Debate 18 January 1984 vol 52 cc319-26.)
W. Boys Smith of the NIO drew up a memo on 30 June 1983 which was copied to several individuals including Sir Philip Woodfield, the permanent undersecretary at the NIO, and the Director and Co-ordinator of Intelligence (DCI) at the NIO, Hal Doyne-Ditmas, a member of MI5. It stated at para 2 that Doyne-Ditmas was “worried about the likely intrusion of the inquiry into intelligence matters if the terms of reference were as wide as those we had in mind…..”
Crucially, there was a reference to “secret work very close to politicians”. At paragraph Para 3, Boys Smith revealed that, “Mr Sheldon (MI5’s Legal Adviser) echoed the DCI’s concern about information being given to the tribunal which would not be in the interests of the intelligence services. He was also concerned about what would be said about secret work very close to politicians. If these activities were to be revealed – through leak if not through public session of the inquiry – there could be a brisk reaction. He pointed out the political embarrassment to be caused to the Secretary of State by any such revelations, quite apart from the difficulties they might cause those engaged in secret work.”
What “secret work very close to politicians’ was taking place that could have been of interest to an inquiry into child sex abuse? The most likely answer is that this was a reference to MI5 and MI6’s secret files on members of the DUP (such as the ‘Wife Beater – see the online book) and the Official Unionist Party members (such as James Molyneaux MP and Knox Cunningham) not to mention Enoch Powell, all of whom were child abusers.
At paragraph 5 (ii) Boys revealed that “The Security Service would prefer a GB judge”. The Security Service, of course, is another name for MI5.
Prior did the bidding of MI5 and Judge William Hughes, an English judge, was asked to conduct the inquiry. Was Prior depraved that he was prepared to protect a paedophile network which would continue to rape children for decades to save MI5/6 from censure? Alternatively, did MI5 have blackmail material on him?
Para 6 of the Boys’ memo revealed an assumption on the part of Boys that MI5’s unethical lawyer, Bernard Sheldon, “might want to suggest [an] inquiry limited to the child-care aspects (presumable therefore under the NI Powers, not the 1921 Act) or a 1921 Act inquiry with terms of references limited in the way suggested above.”
At no time did Prior make it clear either to Parliament or to the public that the Hughes Inquiry was neither required nor empowered to inquire into the performance of the police and intelligence services in relation to the scandal.
When Judge Hughes set out the terms of reference for his Inquiry at a public meeting on 3 May 1984, he made no reference to any such restrictions.
Put simply, the desired outcome of MI5 prevailed. Prior’s sleight of hand produced a castrated probe under the Health and Personal Social Services (Northern Ireland) Act Order 1972. Even the terms of reference for it were subsequently watered down to the extent that it became impotent.
If, as the Intelligence Services claimed, they had no involvement with William McGrath of Kincora, the paramilitary organisation he commanded (Tara), Kincora itself, or with abuse at other homes, why would a 1921-type Tribunal “not [have been] in the interests of the Intelligence Services”?
There’s also been a reference to “secret work very close to extreme Protestants, and close therefore also to some politicians.” Similarly, what could have been said at a full tribunal about these people that worried MI5?
Finally, what “political embarrassment” could be caused to “the Secretary of State by any such revelations.”?
Surely, if the Intelligence Services had no connections with the individuals involved in the alleged sexual abuse allegations, the concerns listed by MI5 were groundless and would not, therefore, have materialised at a 1921 Tribunal?
A number of key questions yet need to be answered: who authorised the changes in the Hughes Inquiry’s terms of reference? Why was Parliament not informed of those changes? What was the justification for those changes? Aside from John McKeague and his ally and fellow paedophile Alan Campbell, who were the “extreme Protestants” that MI5 was protecting?
When Hughes reported, nothing about the role of MI5 was uncovered despite a mountain of evidence that would have been available to him otherwise. Much of that evidence is contained in Village’s online book.
The following men were complicit in this deception: Sir James Prior, Sir Jack Jones, the Director-General of MI5; Hal Doyle-Ditmas the DCI at the NIO; Philip Woodfield the Permanent Undersecretary at the NIO and his counterpart at the Home Office. There were many others in London such as Lord Robert Armstrong, Brian Cubbon and David Goodall, Thatcher’s Cabinet Intelligence Coordinator who share the guilt. Collectively, they allowed the various rape gangs associated with the Anglo-Irish Vice Ring which included Sir Cyril Smith, Peter Morrison MP, Enoch Powell MP, James Molyneaux MP, Jimmy Saville and many others to destroy the lives of countless children over the next few decades. MI5, MI6, the NIO, the PSNI, the Conservative Party continue to knowingly cover up the crimes of the Anglo-Irish Vice Ring. The Independent Inquiry into child Sexual Abuse in London has no interest in these matters.
COVER-UP AT THE BBC
In the 1970s and beyond the BBC in Britain knew that Jimmy Saville was raping children. Yet, they did nothing and continued to let Saville host programmes for children. The Deputy Director-General of the BBC in the 1980s was Alan Protheroe. He not only tolerated Saville but helped MI5 safeguard the Anglo-Irish Vice Ring of which Kincora and other homes were a part. When Wallace was released from prison in 1987, Protheroe moved to shut down a report on his case which was due to appear on Newsnight.
Protheroe actually knew Wallace and was familiar with his role in Northern Ireland. Protheroe had done his National Service in the mid-1950s after which he was commissioned into the Welsh Regiment. After his National Service he joined the Territorial Army. Within the BBC he was referred to as ‘The Colonel’. He was promoted to full colonel in the Territorial Army in 1984. He was awarded a military MBE in 1980 and appointed CBE (military) in 1991. In 1988, he became Managing Director of the Services Sound and Vision Corporation, which provides the Forces and MoD with radio and television broadcasting. He had also served as part of the MoD’s Information Pool of officers.
It is believed that he was responsible for having a script for a television drama about Colin Wallace shelved. The script was an adaptation of Paul Foot’s book, ‘Who Framed Colin Wallace’.
At the time one of the directors of the BBC was Dame Daphne Park, a former MI6 officer. She had participated in the MI6-CIA plot to murder Patrice Lumumba in the Congo. She was no slouch when it came to dirty tricks. She admitted on camera to the BBC that while she had been in MI6 she had engaged in dirty trick operations. “Once you get really good intelligence about any group, you are able to learn where the levers of power are, and what one man fears of another. .. You set people discreetly against one another. .. They destroy each other, we [Intelligence] don’t destroy them.”
MI5 also maintained an office at the BBC’s HQ in London where it monitored and controlled executives and reporters.
It is not clear why Protheroe was prepared to intervene with Newsnight to protect child rapists. Nor is it clear what relationship he had with Jimmy Saville.
AN HONEST BRITISH LEGAL FIGURE EMERGES AT LAST, THE DAVID CALCUTT INQUIRY 1990.
Eventually it became impossible to cover-up the many wrongs occasioned to Wallace and the Calcutt Inquiry was set up. It probed the corruption of the disciplinary procedure against Wallace in 1975. David Calcutt QC behaved honourably. He discovered – and reported – that the process had been corrupted by smears and lies.
Calcutt also found that the MoD did not disclose the correct job description of Colin Wallace.
The Metropolitan Police felt this was a potential fraud and reported it to the then DPP Alan Green. Green wouldn’t let them investigate. Green was a kerb crawler and probably blackmailed by MI5. He later represented the paratroopers at the Saville Inquiry into Bloody Sunday.
Wallace received £30,000 compensation for this travesty in 1990.
THE EXISTENCE OF OPERATION CLOCKWORK ORANGE IS ADMITTED BY THE BRITISH GOVERNMENT PROVING PARLIMANET WAS MISLED.
In January 1990 Archie Hamilton, Britain’s Armed Forces Minister confirmed that a project named Clockwork Orange had been drawn up and that it “contemplated” the dissemination of an account of the organisation of the IRA. However, he claimed that no evidence had been found that it had been extended to cover Protestant organisations and individuals or to include Northern Irish and British politicians.
Hamilton was clearly making a statement on the basis of information being fed to him by parties who had every interest in covering up these activities up. Nonetheless, his limited concession speaks volumes.
Hamilton’s statement also established that Parliament had been misled about Clockwork Orange in the past.
THE HART (HIA) SHAMBLES
No one familiar with the Kincora story was persuaded by the Terry and Hughes reports which failed to uncover and report the role of MI5, MI6 and the Northern Ireland Office in the scandal.
In 2015 a British military intelligence officer, Captain Brian Gemmell, who had worked with MI5 came forward and revealed that he had known about Kincora and had reported to MI5. The senior MI5 officer, Ian Cameron, had forcibly told him to cease his inquiries into William McGrath. This was the final straw in the British Government’s pretence that its intelligence services had no knowledge of the sex abuse at Kincora.
In response to pressure, the British Government set up a new enquiry under Judge Anthony Hart. Village has written extensively about the failure of the Hart Report. It was so bad that it even managed to contradict itself on purely factual matters.
Hart was also provided with documents which the intelligence services had forged in decades gone by and was unable to detect their deceitful nature.
He was also furnished with a deceitful MoD document which purported to describe Wallace’s role without including any reference to his PsyOps functions. Hart accepted this at face value. Worse still, the document referred to Wallace as having been a member of the Ulster Special Constabulary but apparently confused the USC with the UVF. While one might understand that MI5 officers from Britain ignorant of Irish affairs might have made a fundamental mistake such as this, one would have thought that Hart would have smelt a rat. He did not. What was even more surprising was Peter Broderick, the former head of the Army Information, told the Observer newspaper that he had been given the same false information when he appeared as a witness on Wallace’s behalf at his disciplinary hearing in 1975.
In the light of the above, it is perhaps no surprise that Hugh Mooney was not called to give evidence before Hart.
INDEPENDENT INQUIRY INTO CHILD SEXUAL ABUSE
Sadly, the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse in London has ignored a mountain of evidence about the Anglo-Irish Vice Ring and the child abuse perpetrated by Westminster MPs such as Enoch Powell, James Molyneaux and others. IICSA is led by the supremely disinterested and utterly ineffectual Prof Alexis Jay.
APPENDIX: A more legible copy of Bob Fisk’s report of 8 Feb 1975
