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PB July-August 2023 July-August 2023 27
T
he death of Alfredo ‘Freddie’
Scappaticci earlier this year shut the
door on the best opportunity to
solve one of the most sinister
murders of the Troubles, the
assassination of Robert Bradford MP.
Operation Kenova, which has been probing
the Scappaticci scandal for seven years, and
has cost approximately €40,000,000, is
unlikely now to establish what took place. The
killing was linked to the cover-up of the
Kincora Boys’ Home scandal.
The stench of death associated with the
Kincora scandal is heady.
One of the most significant Loyalist
terrorists of the period 1968-82, was John
McKeague, a paedophile. He knew all about
Kincora. McKeague was murdered by British
agents when he threatened to spill the beans
on the scandal.
William McGrath, who was the ‘housefather’
at Kincora, was a British agent. He was
involved in the clandestine importation of
arms for Loyalist terrorists, including his own
paramilitary organisation, Tara. Rishi Sunak’s
proposed legacy legislation, if passed, will
help conceal the full extent of State-Loyalist
collusion, some of which was linked to
McGrath.
In addition, sex-abuse victims committed
suicide. One Kincora boy took his life after
being violated by Lord Louis Mountbatten.
1.Honey trap
MI5 and MI6 ran a ‘honey trap’ operation at
Kincora Boys Home, a residence in Belfast for
boys, aged 14 years and upwards, in the
1970s. Residents were tracked to Loyalist
politicians and paramilitaries, as well as VIPs,
for sexual abuse. Some were molested at the
home, others at hotels such as the Europa,
Girton Lodge and Park Avenue in Belfast, as
well as the Queen’s Court in Bangor.
NEWS
By David Burke
‘Kompromat’ or dirt was collected about
politicians and paramilitaries. Some were
blackmailed into working for the intelligence
services.
The British Establishment applied a double
coat of whitewash over Kincora in an attempt
to cover-up the full extent of this scandal
decades ago. A lot - but not all of it – has been
peeled away by survivors, whistleblowers and
obstinate truth-seekers.
2. Driven to suicide
Eric Witchell is a paedophile. He now lives in
London. In the 1970s he ran Williamson House
in Belfast where he preyed on pre-pubescent
boys and young teenagers. He and his
accomplices drove at least three of them to
commit suicide; another two to attempt it. A
select few were transferred to Kincora when
they reached 14.
Stephen Waring, one of the residents of
Kincora, ran away from the home in November
1977, a few months after being abused by Lord
Mountbatten at Classsiebawn, County Sligo.
Waring made it as far as Liverpool where he
was captured and put on the Ulster Monarch
car ferry destined for Belfast. He never made
it home. Apparently, he jumped overboard to
his death. His body was never found.
The Garda have retained the security logs
which record the visitors to Classsiebawn in
The most vicious of them all
Sunk nd Murl 2
Mins, McGrth, McKegue
Scappaticci, an IRA
assassination unit,
MI5, the murder
of a Westminster
MP and Kincora’s
stench of death
28 July-August 2023 July-August 2023 29
1977 but have declined to disclose them to me
and Andrew Lownie, Mountbatten’s
biographer. They undoubtedly record the
arrival of Joe Mains, the Warden of Kincora, in
a vehicle with boys, including Waring, who
was seated in the rear. I am frankly aghast that
the government - which could intervene - has
no interest in helping the survivors of sex
abuse committed in Sligo by ordering Garda
Commissioner Drew Harris to release the
security logs.
3. A dismembered child’s
body in the Lagan
Brian McDermott, aged 10, disappeared from
Ormeau Park on 3 September 1973. Part of his
dismembered and charred body was found in
a sack in the River Lagan a week later. The RUC
discovered evidence that he was abducted
and murdered by Alan Campbell, a founding
member of the DUP. Campbell was also in Tara,
a Loyalist paramilitary organisation, and was
a friend of the paedophiles who ran Kincora.
Colin Wallace, who worked at the British
Army’s HQ at Lisburn, has told Village that the
British Army, which had an interest in Tara,
was alerted by the RUC that they were about
to arrest Campbell. Then, suddenly, the police
were ordered to stand down. Only the Northern
Ireland Oce (NIO) possessed that sort of
authority. The security apparatus of the NIO
was run by MI5 and Ministry of Defence
ocials. The manoeuvre ensured that the
Kincora ‘honey trap’ operation did not unravel
at that time.
Significantly, Campbell was a British agent.
Authors Jack Holland and Henry McDonald,
referred to him as the ‘Demon Preacher’ in
their books, describing him as an obvious
British agent.
Campbell and his cabal are suspects in the
abduction of four other Belfast boys whose
bodies were never recovered: Jonathan Aven,
age 14, who disappeared on 20 September
1969; David Leckey, aged 12, who went
missing on 25 September 1969; Thomas
Spence, age 11, and John Rogers, aged 13,
who both vanished on 26 November 1974.
Had the RUC been permitted to arrest
Campbell, it is probable that young Spence
and Rogers would still be alive today.
The BBC commissioned a documentary
about the disappearance of these boys. It was
completed in 2021 and entitled, ‘The Lost
Boys of Belfast’. It was intended to be
broadcast in May 2021 but was pulled by
management. It is not certain if it will ever be
aired. It uncovered evidence of MI5
involvement in the protection of Campbell and
the Kincora cabal. RUC ocers went on record
in front of the cameras.
4.The gunrunning
operations of the ‘housefather’
of Kincora, William McGrath
Colin ‘Jay’ Wyatt, joined Tara following the
publication of the Tara ‘Proclamation’ of 1973
by William McGrath. Wyatt has revealed that
McGrath sent him and another Tara member
to Holland in 1977, to make contact with
people from the extreme Right, who had
supplied weapons to Tara previously.
According to Wyatt, after he returned to
Belfast, a debrief was held at McGrath’s
house. A distinguished looking Englishman,
whose name was not volunteered to Wyatt,
was in attendance. McGrath later told Wyatt
that the stranger was an ‘Under Secretary’ at
the NIO who was involved in intelligence work.
Wyatt also revealed that McGrath was
involved in attempting to obtain arms from
South African sources.
MI6, Britain’s overseas intelligence service,
must have been involved as McGrath’s
mission comprehended links to the
Netherlands and probably South Africa. The
Chief of MI6 at the time of these endeavours
was Sir Maurice Oldfield. The overall operation
was probably a joint MI5-6 mission. MI5
(which is attached to the Home Oce) would
have taken care of the UK end of the operation,
including the distribution of the weapons.
How many people were shot dead by the
guns McGrath imported is an imponderable.
5. The Pastor who took
his own life
The Kincora scandal finally came to light in
January 1980. One of the abusers, another
close friend of Ian Paisley, a pastor called Billy
Mullen, committed suicide the following
December. He was found dead with a gun
beside his corpse.
6. Robert Bradford MP,
a politician with the
inside track
In 1980, Robert Bradford, a Unionist MP,
became appalled at what he was learning
about the abuse at Kincora. He had
campaigned against child pornography.
Bradford was ideally placed to inquire into
the seedy world that lurked in the shadows of
Kincora. He knew William McGrath. Both men
were British Israelites, people who believed
that the Protestants of Northern Ireland were
the descendants of one of the Lost Tribes of
Israel.
Eric Witchell
Ulster Monrch nd Mountbtten
Brin McDermott
Cmpbell nd Brin McDermott
Mulln
28 July-August 2023 July-August 2023 29
Alan Campbell was also a British Israelite,
as was Paisley and others in the DUP.
After McGrath was arrested, Bradford found
himself in an ideal position to establish what
had been going on.
Members of the UVF, UDA, Red Hand
Commando and Tara knew about, or were
highly suspicious of, McGrath’s links to MI5
and 6.
In the early 1970s, the UVF had been allies
of Tara. The UVF decided to distance
themselves from Tara because of McGrath’s
links to Britain’s spy agencies. Publicly, they
walked out from a Tara meeting on the basis
that McGrath was a homosexual.
McGrath had once been a protagonist in
what became the UDA. The organisation
emerged from an array of vigilante groups due
in no small part to the encouragement of
McGrath. He wrote and distributed a leaflet in
which he exhorted Loyalists to formalise their
vigilante patrols into a properly constructed
“army”, something that came to pass in 1971.
The UDA undoubtedly knew what the UVF had
learnt about McGrath. The UDA placed Kincora
under surveillance, a simple task as it was
located at a crossroads with plenty of adjacent
hedges and fences to conceal observers, not
to mention places at which vans could be
parked.
By 1980, McGrath’s background as a British
spy was an item of gossip in UDA, UVF, Tara,
DUP and British Israelite circles.
Bradford and thousands of others knew
some or all of this. Bradford, however, was
more dangerous than a street corner gossip.
He was a sitting Westminster MP, i.e., he could
raise the issue in the House of Commons. His
party leader, James Molyneaux MP, was a life-
long bachelor who was attracted to young
men. Molyneaux was also a friend of McGrath
and therefore unlikely in the extreme to raise
the scandal in the Commons. Ian Paisley MP,
another friend of McGrath, was equally
unlikely to rue MI5’s feathers.
McGrath’s trial was scheduled for December
1981, along with that of two other Kincora
staff members, Joe Mains and Raymond
Semple. Like McGrath, Mains was a British
agent.
Bradford was murdered a few weeks before
the trial commenced.
7. Inside job, the day Bradford
was murdered
The IRA unit which killed Bradford consisted
of Freddie Scappaticci, a British agent, and at
least two other gunmen.
A second killer on the hit team, Joe Haughey,
is believed by the IRA and journalists to have
been a British agent as well.
The murder took place in a community
centre in front of multiple witnesses. The
assassins did not wear masks.
The smaller of the gang was described as
stocky with sallow skin, a good match for
Scappaticci, who was 5’ 3 and of Italian
descent. The RUC photofit gave the assassin
a moustache. One witness has since identified
this individual as Scappaticci. The police
proved uninterested when he later stated this
during an interview posted online.
Crucial fingerprints were not taken by the
RUC to enable them to detach those who were
legitimately present at the centre.
Bradford had a police bodyguard. The
hitmen could have killed him but chose not to.
This chimes with their being on a mission for
MI5.
Scappaticci and Haughey served as the
perfect shock absorbers for the hit: no one
suspected the hand of MI5 in the elimination
of Bradford.
The Bradford murder has never been solved.
8. Operation Kenova
Scappaticci may have killed over 30 people.
Operation Kenova, led by Jon Boutcher, was
set up to establish what Scappaticci did while
a British agent.
Scappaticci was arrested by Operation
Kenova in 2018. It uncovered his interest in
bestial pornography, something for which he
was convicted. He died in April of 2023.
Haughey passed away in December 2018.
If Scappaticci and Haughey did not kill
Bradford because of Kincora, why did their
handlers not stop them?
It is not known if Boutcher has asked for any
Kincor view of rods from inside Scppticc, Boutcher, Brdford
Joe Hughey
Adms nd Scppticci
Frederick Scppticci
Murdered by Scppticci
Peter Robinson nd Robert Brdford
30 July-August 2023 July-August 2023 31
information about the Bradford hit from MI5.
In any event, it is inconceivable that Boutcher
would be granted sight of MI5’s true file on
Bradford.
While Boutcher is trusted by the families of
the victims, he is surely aware by now of the
depth and murkiness of the sea into which he
has been cast. Sadly for all concerned, it is
unlikely in the extreme that he will ever fathom
the true breadth of the Scappaticci abyss. Like
the Royal Family, MI5 is above the law.
9. The RUC cover-up
In early 1982 the media began to report on a
number of the more disturbing aspects of the
Kincora scandal, especially the failure of the
RUC to halt the rape of the boys, despite their
long-standing knowledge of the scandal.
In 2022, the Police Ombudsman ripped
apart the tapestry of lies that the RUC had
woven over the decades by confirming that the
force had known about the abuse of boys at
Kincora for years before it was exposed.
Chris Moore, the BBC NI investigative
journalist who led the charge on Kincora in the
early 1980s, learnt from ‘David’ an ocer in
the RUC that in the mid-1970s:
“David’s inquiries [had] led him to
Kincora. He began to watch Kincora. He built
up a profile of people coming and going at
Kincora who had no legitimate business in
going into the building. He told me he took
photographs of individuals; captured car
registrations and identified the owners.
Among those he says he positively identified
were Justices of the Peace; two police ocers;
businessmen and two Englishmen who
wereocials from the Northern Ireland Oce
based at Stormont”.
‘David’s’ inquiries were shut down by his
superiors.
What is clear from the foregoing– and other
events – is that the RUC knew all about Kincora
before they began the pretence of an
investigation. In reality, they were
participating in a State cover-up.
10. The RUC gather the dirt
on MI5
In early 1982, RUC CID ocers began to circle
around John McKeague, a well-known
paedophile who was a close friend of the three
Kincora employees who had been convicted
and imprisoned in December 1981. He was
also a terrorist and a British agent. He had first
worked for British military intelligence and,
later, for MI5.
The RUC team, led by George Caskey, was
asking some of the right questions but, as
events would prove, Caskey was the driving
force behind the cover-up. His industry was
probably motivated by a desire to accumulate
dirt on MI5 so the RUC could rely upon it in
their various power struggles with MI5, but
only behind the scenes.
As the sex abuse at Kincora was ostensibly
a crime, it fell to the RUC to investigate. Of
course, it was much more than that, and
everyone working as a high level in security
and intelligence in Northern Ireland knew it. A
performance, however, had to be staged for
the public, with the sacrifice of scapegoats.
The fact that the RUC was in such a pole
position underlines why Scappaticci did not
kill the police ocer who was acting as
bodyguard for Robert Bradford MP. Had he
been killed, the rage of the RUC might have
been inflamed to the point where they refused
to participate in the cover-up.
11. McKeague, a British agent,
is targeted by the RUC
Jack Holland and Henry McDonald, authors of
the highly regarded book, ‘INLA Deadly
Divisions’, have described how an
“intelligence agent who says he was
McKeague’s handler confirmed to the authors
the former loyalist leader was supplying
information to the British from the early
1970s. This man had been McKeague’s
handler up until 1976; after that his contact
was less frequent, as the value of McKeague’s
information declined, mainly because of the
fact that other loyalists intensely distrusted
him. Still, his handler would visit him in his
shop regularly to pick up whatever McKeague
had to oer”..(p.307)
McKeague was less forthcoming for another
reason: in 1976 he was poached by MI5 via
blackmail, as revealed by Captain Brian
Gemmell. Gemmell worked with MI5 and
reported to Ian Cameron at HQNI, Lisburn.
Gemmell was present at meetings at which
MI5 ocers discussed recruiting McKeague
via blackmail relating to his sexual activities.
McKeague was involved in multiple
abductions, torture sessions and murders. He
was commander of the Red Hand Commando
(RHC). The RHC was responsible for many
brutal slayings, including that of Seamus
Ludlow in the Republic of Ireland. The RHC
gang that killed Ludlow reported directly to
McKeague.
McKeague was picked up and questioned
by the RUC in January 1982.
Here was a man who really knew what had
been going on.
12. A Red Hand Commando
threatens to spill the beans
McKeague’s military intelligence handler told
authors Holland and McDonald “that
sometime in January 1982 he learnt that
McKeague was about to ‘go public’ on what he
knew concerning the Kincora Boys Home
scandal” (p. 308). That was a fatal call.
To those in the CID who were not infected by
the contagious immorality of the NIO/MI5/6,
a major breakthrough beckoned. To those only
interested in collecting dirt on MI5 for the
benefit of secret RUC tussles with the British
spies, a golden opportunity was presenting
itself. The obvious next step was to heap the
pressure on McKeague and ascertain at whom
he would point his finger, especially one of his
close friends, a rising figure in the DUP.
Since McKeague was extremely close to the
sta at Kincora, especially Joe Mains, he
undoubtedly knew that Mains had tracked
boys to Mountbatten.
Mountbatten was known and admired in
Belfast’s paedophile and pederast community.
When he died, Ken Larmour, another member
of the Kincora paedophile ring, shed tears in
front of a boy he – Larmour – was abusing. The
George Cskey
John McKegue nd RHC logo
Kincor Mins Mountbtten nd
Clssiebwn
30 July-August 2023 July-August 2023 31
former victim has described to Village how
Larmour said of Mountbatten that “he had
been so good to the boys in Belfast. Ken
talked about the circle as the old Greek Culture
of adult men mentoring young boys. It was an
upper class view of paedophilia.”
Larmour was part of a circle which included
Alan Campbell, McKeague and other abusers.
They thrived on gossip and scandal. It is
inconceivable that McKeague did not know
about Mountbatten.
The fact McKeague knew chapter and verse
about the ‘honey trap’ which had been set for
the ‘Wife Beater’, a rising star in the DUP, on
the first floor of the Park Avenue hotel in
Belfast, must have been of immense concern
to MI5 too.
If McKeague was to ‘go public’ or even
speak to the RUC’s CID, the prospect of chaos
loomed: soon members of the vice network
might be fighting like ferrets in a sack in the
interest of self-preservation and MI5’s role in
the hellscape that was Kincora might spill out.
13. British agents in the INLA
save the day
MI5’s concerns about McKeague were solved
permanently on 29 January, 1982, when he
was assassinated at the shop he ran on the
Albertbridge Road in Belfast by a two-man
unit of the INLA. One of them shot him in the
head at close range in the presence of an
elderly assistant. According to Holland and
McDonald, “Two men were involved, escaping
on foot into the Short Strand. One of the men
is known to have been working for the [RUC’s]
Special Branch, and the other is also alleged
to have had security force connections”. (p
308)
Holland and McDonald have revealed that
Rabbie McAllister, an INLA member who was
an RUC Special Branch agent, was arrested on
5 February, 1982, a few days after McKeague’s
assassination. He provided the RUC with a
statement revealing details about the
activities of other INLA members. (p. 308)
According to Holland and McDonald:
“The McKeague killing was not mentioned
by McAllister in his statement, though he is
alleged to have been part of the unit that
carried it out. This raises another complex
problem. A former leading member of the INLA
reported that no-one in the organisation knew
who gave the order for McKeague to be shot.
This is more intriguing still in the light of the
allegation that McKeague himself was working
for British army intelligence”. (p. 309)
Holland and McDonald also revealed that
while McAllister was in jail, “he approached a
senior member of the Belfast INLA” who told
him that “British intelligence had helped set
up McKeague. They had guaranteed that there
would be no foot patrols in the area when the
[McKeague] assassination took place. It is
also alleged that the eighteen-year-old
gunman who actually shot McKeague made a
long statement outlining his involvement in
working for the security forces, and left it in
the keeping of a Belfast priest”.
14. Joss Cardwell takes his
own life
Another loose end was tied up when Joss
Cardwell took his life on 25 April 1982. He was
a key member of the Kincora cabal. Cardwell,
a 70-year-old bachelor, Unionist councillor
and former Stormont MP, was the chairman of
the welfare committee which oversaw Kincora
and other care homes. He died in the front seat
of his car in the garage at his Belfast home
from carbon monoxide poisoning after being
interviewed by the RUC about his visits to
Kincora.
Cardwell had arranged for boys to be
tracked to various locations, including
England. On one of those trips, a boy from
Kincora was abused by a young English TV
actor who, in more recent years, was the
winner of a major TV celebrity competition.
15. The murder in University
Square
On 7 December 1983, Edgar Graham, a
29-year-old Unionist politician, was murdered
in Queen’s university by a member of the
Belfast IRA. Bearing in mind that Scappaticci,
Joe Haughey, Denis Donaldson and other key
Belfast Provos were British agents, questions
have to be asked about this murder too. The
motive attributed to the IRA was risible, i.e.,
that Graham was an articulate man who might
one day rise to lead the Unionist Party.
A more likely explanation is that MI5 was
concerned about Graham’s inquiries into the
activities of Albert ‘Ginger’ Baker, a former
British soldier who had become a UDA hit man.
Baker, known to his handlers as Agent
‘Broccoli’, had suered some sort of a nervous
breakdown in 1973. He confessed his guilt in
a series of brutal murders to the Warminister
County police during a return trip to England.
His handlers did not have an opportunity to
act before the Baker cat jumped out of the bag.
Damage limitation became the order of the
day. Baker was put on trial, pleaded guilty and
was sent to prison. His role as an agent did not
surface.
Grhm nd Bker
Joss Crdwell
MI5 HQ GOwer Street
Murder of John McKegue
32 July-August 2023 July-August 2023 PB
D-G, 1981-85, shoulder the heftiest measure
of blame. In MI6, the finger of opprobrium
points squarely at Sir Maurice Oldfield, deputy
chief, 1965-73, chief, 1973-78, and NI Security
Co-ordinator, 1979-80.
Ideally, a photograph of another man of
indisputable evil should appear here.
Unfortunately, no picture of him has ever
surfaced. He was Ian Cameron. He ran MI5
operations in Northern Ireland, in the mid-
1970s, from his oce at British Army HQNI at
Hnley, Smith, Jones nd Oldfield
In July 1988 Baker, still in prison and
disgruntled, told Ken Livingstone MP (later
Mayor of London) what he knew about Kincora.
“The whole Inner Council of the UDA knew
about it”, he revealed, “but no Inner Council
members were involved in it. There were
politicians and senior Northern Ireland Oce
ocials involved in it. I know one who’s in the
House of Commons. He’s one of your own [i.e.
British Labour Party] men”. He also revealed
that: “Well, as far as they were concerned it
was being organised by British Intelligence
and they kept away from that. They knew the
intelligence services were running it”.
Graham was, apparently, investigating
Baker’s links to British intelligence. If he was
ever to speak to Baker, the issue of Kincora
would have arisen, just as surely as it did
during Livingstone’s discussions with Baker a
few years later. Baker is still alive. Not one of
the multiple inquiries into Kincora over the
decades ever interviewed him.
Like Bradford, the Graham murder has never
been solved. This despite the array of British
agents inside the Belfast IRA who surely knew
who fired the shots.
16.Let them be remembered
for their crimes and
nothing else
There are too many British intelligence ocers
guilty of crimes outlined in this article to
name. However, Sir Michael Hanley, D-G of
MI5, 1972-78; Sir Howard Smith, D-G, 1978-
81; Sir John Jones, deputy D-G, 1976-81, and
Lisburn. A photograph of his superior, Denis
Payne, also of MI5, who was based at the NIO,
is available.
The Kincora scandal is not going to
disappear into the sinkhole of history. Too
much has emerged for that to happen. There
is still plenty to uncover.
The greatest single obstacle to establishing
the truth at present is Rishi Sunak. His
government has decided to proceed with the
so-called ‘legacy legislation’ which will shut
down many opportunities to unearth the truth
about Kincora and other MI5 and 6 dirty trick
operations in Ireland.
David Burke is the author of a number of
books which describe British intelligence
operations in Ireland.
Rishi Sunk nd UVF murl
Denis Pyne
The greatest obstacle to
establishing the truth at
present is Rishi Sunak
