By Joseph de Burca
1. Getting away with murder.
Sir Patrick Walker was in charge of MI5 when the Belfast solicitor Patrick Finucane was assassinated by MI5 agents. Those agents were handled by the RUC Special Branch on behalf of MI5. They included Tommy Lyttle, Brian Nelson, William Stobie and Ken Barret.
The assassination, which was bloody and brutal, was carried out in front of Finucane’s wife and young family.
The assassination, which was bloody and brutal, was carried out in front of Finucane’s wife and young family.
The Canadian judge who investigated the matter, Peter Cory, told the widow of Patrick Finucane that he had seen documents which emanated from ‘Cabinet’ level about the killing. The most reasonable interpretation of this is that Walker was ordered, or had the sanction of Margaret Thatcher and some of those around her in Whitehall, to murder Finucane.
The British State has resisted an inquiry into the Finucane assassination for decades. It has flouted agreements and court orders in so doing.
When David Cameron was in 10 Downing Street, he told the Finucane family that he could not order a public inquiry into the scandal. When Finucane’s brother Martin asked him why, he turned to Mrs. Finucane and said: “Look, the last administration couldn’t deliver an inquiry in your husband’s case and neither can we”. According to Cameron this was because “there are people all around this place, [10 Downing Street], who won’t let it happen”. As he was saying this, he raised a finger and made a circular motion in the air.
Theresa May, who was Cameron’s Home Secretary between 2010 and 2016, did not order a proper inquiry either whem she became prime minister.
Walker’s death will please those in Whitehall who are pulling the strings in the background in resistance to the establishment of a full judicial inquiry into the murder. They are engaged in a tactic of ‘running down the clock’. There are very few people alive now who were directly involved in the plot against Finucane.
Village magazine accused Walker of the murder years ago. He was named in one story which has been read more than 22,000 times. He did not sue. He did even seek a right of reply. His silence now condemns him.
A full account of the Finucane assassination can be found here, especially at Part 4: Thatcher’s Murder Machine, the British State assassination of Patrick Finucane. By Joseph de Burca.
2. Northern Ireland, counter-terrorism and ‘Death on the Rock’.
Walker garnered considerable experience in NI on his way up MI5’s blood soaked greasy pole. He served as assistant to David Ransen, the head of MI5 in NI during the late 1970s.
He rose to become the head of MI5’s counter-terrorism division (F Branch), 1984-86. He became Deputy D-G in 1986.
He was a bully given to flashes of temper when things went wrong.
He was the D-G who oversaw the killing of three members of an IRA active service unit (ASU) in Gibraltar in 1988. That unit was planning the slaughter of a harmless ceremonial band and guard. Suffice it to say, many non-military bystanders and tourists would have been wiped out too. How the IRA planned to equate such a massacre with a ‘just war’ is anyone’s guess. The elimination of the ASU became notorious because the IRA volunteers were on a scouting mission and were unarmed. The SAS men who shot them were acting in tandem with MI5.
Carmen Proetta, who witnessed the SAS soldiers in action spoke to the media. Her account contra
dicted that of the British government. She was then portrayed in the UK press as a prostitute. No money for guessing who briefed the hacks with that lie. She was later awarded libel damages.
One female witness who saw the SAS soldiers in action spoke to the media. Her account contradicted that of the British government. She was then portrayed in the UK press as a prostitute. No money for guessing who briefed the hacks with that lie. She was later awarded libel damages.
3. Protecting paedophile rings.
Walker was also in charge of MI5 during the last real heave by British MPs and journalists (such as Paul Foot) to uncover the truth about the vile Kincora Boys’ Home sex abuse scandal. MI5 and MI6 used the home as a ‘honey trap’ to collect ‘compromat’ about Loyalist terrorists and politicians. As a result of the cover-up, the wider paedophile ring of which Kincora was a part survived intact. Kincora was part of the Anglo-Irish Vice Ring which overlapped with a multitude of other similar rings. An incalculable number of children were raped as a result of Walker’s contribution to the cover-up.
An incalculable number of children were raped as a result of Walker’s contribution to the cover-up.
Walker undoubtedly knew all about Kincora from his earlier days working in NI as assistant to David Ransen. Furthermore, the FX section of MI5 was responsible for surveillance operations which included telephone tapping, photographing and video taping of MI5 ‘compromat’ targets. At least one Kincora boy was raped by a senior DUP figure on the first floor of the Park Avenue Hotel in Belfast in 1976. He was one of many recorded by MI5 at the venue. While this event took place before Walker took over FX, he would have read all the files and may even have reviewed photographs and videos in the possession of FX as the Kincora scandal became a massive headache for MI5 during the 1980s. By then the DUP figure was in a senior political position from where he was able to assist the cover-up. This man was an associate of the terrorist, serial killer and paedophile John McKeague.
4. Sailing by the same dark compass as his mentor.
Walker was placed in charge of MI5 at the behest of his predecessor, Sir Anton Duff. Duff was another of those who covered up for paedophiles and state assassins. Unfortunately, Walker sailed by the same dark compass as that of Duff.
Sir Peter Morrison MP was one of a number of VIP paedophiles who was protected by MI5 at this time. Morrison served as Deputy Chairman of the Conservative Party back in the 1980s. He was a nasty and violent child rapist. We need look no further than official British archive records for proof of Morrison’s proclivities. The archives show that on 4 November, 1986, Sir Antony Duff, then serving as D-G of MI5, wrote to Sir Robert Armstrong, Margaret Thatcher’s Cabinet Secretary, after allegations of child abuse had been made by separate sources against Morrison. Morrison had been accused (entirely accurately as it transpired) of child abuse. Duff opined that Morrison was only a minor “security danger”. After the Morrison memo came to light in July of 2015, Armstrong (famed for his use of the phrase “being economical with the truth”), defended his inaction thus: “Clearly I was aware of it .. but I was not concerned with the personal aspect of it, whether he should or should not be pursued. That was something for the police to consider. My concern was implications of national security and international relations.” (BBC Radio 4’s Today Programme).
Yet, neither Armstrong nor anyone at MI5 reported this information to the police. Walker was Deputy D-G at this time.
Morrison’s successful upward career trajectory could not have been sustained without the support of Duff and later, Walker. Instead of being locked up, Morrison was able to persist in his abuse of boys including a number of unfortunates at Bryn Estate care home in Wrexham, North Wales. He went on to become Thatcher’s private secretary.
The real purpose of the discussion between MI5 and Armstrong was to find out if Morrison mught have been compromised by a foreign power and, if not, keep him in play as someone the top civil servants at Whitehall could depend upon. No doubt there were many other politicians who lost their independence in a similar fashion. Why else would Blair, Cameron and May have failed to honour the UK’s committment to hold a full judicial inquiry into the Finucane assassination?
In May’s case, it is suspected that MI5 and the Cabinet Office held a nasty file on a now deceased member of her family. Hence, she thwarted a full inquiry into Kincora after the emergence of new evidence from two whistle blowers: Capt. Brian Gemmell and Richard Kerr. Instead, Judge Anthony Hart and his impotent HIA probe was appointed to look at the issue. Hart, who was not the brightest of men, was doomed to failure from the start. He reported in 2017. His report even managed to contradict itself on basic facts.
5. Freddie Scappaticci was an agent of MI5 while Walker was D-G.
Freddie Scappaticci of the Provisional IRA was an MI5 agent. He was a member of the organisations ‘Nutting Squad’, the team which rooted out, tortured and executed informers.
He murdered and tortured tens of people while serving an an asset of Duff and Walker. Many of these were IRA members who Scappaticci forced to confess to being informers when they were not. This appears to have served three possible purposes. First, it served to distract attention from the actions of real informers. Second, it eliminated genuine IRA volunteers who were executed as informers. Third, it created leadership opportunities for MI5 informers who filled the vacancies created by those executed.
Scappaticci was a brutal sadist who conducted his interrogations in a bloody and excessively violent manner.
Scappaticci also extracted confessions from actual informers who were duly executed. More details about this may emerge after the Operstion Kenova probe by Jon Boucher reports on the case. Walker obviously permitted this to happen to preserve Scappaticci’s cover.
6. Walker’s self image: a devoted Catholic who gave up much time for charity.
Walker may have started out life as a decent human being, but a career in MI5 expunged any goodness that resided in his soul. MI5 turned him into a cold blooded desk killer who was able to sleep soundly at night while the paedophiles he was protecting raped children and Scappaticci went about his grizzly business.
Walker may have started out life as a decent human being, but a career in MI5 expunged any goodness that resided in his soul. MI5 turned him into a cold blooded desk killer who was able to sleep soundly at night while the paedophiles he was protecting raped children and Scappaticci went about his grizzly business.
Walker devoted some of his retirement to charity. Perhaps he thought he could manipulate his legacy.
Arguably, his most hypocritical masquerade was to hold himself out to those around him as a devout Catholic convert.
Arguably, his most hypocritical masquerade was to hold himself out to those around him as a devout Catholic convert.
7. MI5’s obituary hails Walker as a D-G who favoured ‘openness’, someone who always had the ‘welfare of his staff at heart’, a man whose charitable work included ‘advocating for disability rights’.
MI5 is claiming that Walker brought MI5 into a new ‘period of openness’. The Finucane family, those murdered by Scappaticci and the survivors of the Anglo-Irish Vice Ring will find this assertion difficult to accept.
Walker spent no time ‘advocating’ for the ‘rights’ of the victims of the Anglo-Irsh Vice Ring. Stephen Waring of Kincora killed himself in November 1977 by jumping from a car ferry at night. At least three boys from Williamson House took their own lives. Others became drug and alcohol addicts.
MI5 issued the following statement on 19 October:
We are saddened to announce that Sir Patrick Walker, Director General of MI5 between 1988-1992, died on 13 October following a long illness.
Born in 1932 in Kuala Lumpar, Sir Patrick was educated at Kings’ School Canterbury. After reading Modern History at Trinity College Oxford, Patrick joined the Overseas Civil Service. He spent six years as an assistant District Commissioner in Uganda, before joining the Security Service at the end of 1962. From counter-espionage, to a secondment to government, to counter- terrorism, he rose through the ranks before becoming Director of both the Irish and international counter-terrorist sections. He was appointed Deputy Director General in 1986, and became the 12th Director General of MI5 in 1988.
During his term of office he oversaw MI5’s transition through the end of the Cold War. He led MI5 into a new period of openness, with the enactment of the Security Service Act 1989, which put MI5 on a statutory footing. The Act acknowledged the function of MI5 for the first time: prior to 1989, successive UK governments had denied MI5’s existence.
Sir Patrick retired in 1992, having been awarded the KCB in 1990. On retirement, he became Chairman of the International Committee of the Leonard Cheshire Foundation, a global health and welfare charity advocating for disability rights. He joined the board of governors of the Nene College in 1997, later becoming Chairman and steering them to full university status as the University of Northampton. He was also on boards of several local organisations and charities in Northamptonshire.
Current MI5 Director General, Ken McCallum, offered his condolences on behalf of the entire organisation:
‘Sir Patrick’s career was characterised by his energy and enthusiasm, often winning high praise as a dynamic Intelligence Officer, most notably in the field of counter-terrorism. He was a responsive, active leader, who never failed to have the welfare of his staff at heart.
‘Our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with his wife of 66 years, Susan, their three children and his extended family’.
