Parapolitics: “Generally, covert politics, the conduct of public affairs not by rational debate and responsible decision-making but by indirection, collusion and deceit.” – Peter Dale Scott
The Watergate tag is appropriate to Kincora because, like that epic affair, an initial minor offence was the key that unlocked many secret doors. As James Angleton noted: “A mansion has many rooms.” The continuing leaks and revelations in Northern Ireland are gradually drawing in the higher echelons of Britain’s secret state. As the net becomes wider the covert war of the last 14 years is made gradually clearer. The latest inquiry under Judge Hughes, late of the English southern circuit, and resident of Norfolk, has concentrated on social work issues at nine hostels, including Kincora. It has tried to keep clear of controversy but, though unreported on the mainland, it seems to have a habit of courting it.
The inquiry started off well. In a complete change of tack from the Terry investigation, Judge Hughes praised the press for their work in exposing the scandal. “I think they did make a valuable contribution in the past by their research and their reports. And I say that because I have the advantage of reading every press cutting, which is pretty well everything which has been written about it. This stood me in good stead in understanding what are pretty complicated matters.” (Irish News 4 May 1984) Unfortunately that early promise turned out to be nothing more than a public relations exercise.
The inquiry only lasted one day before there was a threat of a High Court appeal and an immediate adjournment. The Northern Ireland Public Service Alliance (NIPSA) claimed that it had been given the voluminous evidence the day before, without time to study it. (Social Work Today 2 July 1984). When that was sorted out the inquiry got going again only to run into more problems. Two key figures in the Kincora scandal, William McGrath and Colin Wallace, were excused from giving evidence to the committee of inquiry. Stephen Quinn, Secretary to the committee – which has the power to impose a three months’ prison sentence on people who fail to comply with the standby notice to appear – said “The Committee has no intention of calling McGrath on the grounds of having full information to the evidence at his committal. We don’t regard it as necessary to call him.” (Sunday News 9 September 1984) This has the sound of background deals being done to keep the men away from the committee.
McGrath’s guilty plea at his trial was regarded as a surprise as he was threatening to plead not guilty and ‘blow the gaffe’ right up until the last minute. (Social Work Today 12 January 1982) It must be said that the original evidence against him was quite flimsy, and it was never proved conclusively that he was a homosexual, let alone a child molester. It could be that McGrath has been offered protection in return for not appearing. A former resident of Kincora Boys Home stated “Some of the boys, and some of the paramilitaries too, will be waiting for McGrath and the others when they get out of jail next year.” (Phoenix 11 November 1983)
As reported in Lobster 4, efforts were being made by Lord Avebury (Eric Lubbock) and the Duke of Norfolk to clear Wallace of the ‘It’s A Knock Out’ murder. Mrs Anne Wallace met her husband Colin whilst she was assistant in Conmower intelligence office of MI6 in Belfast. She is now personal secretary to the Duke of Norfolk, who retired as Director of Military Intelligence, M.O.D. in 1967. The Duke is a close friend of Sir Francis Brooks Richards and has been known to have regular sessions with him in White’s Club. Richards, a former co-ordinator of intelligence in the Cabinet Office, replaced Maurice Oldfield in May 1980 as overall co-ordinator of security in Ulster, and is now head of the Joint Intelligence Committee. Good connections for Wallace, still in prison. In September it was revealed that the Home Office had renewed its interest in Wallace. It has ordered a new investigation of the case and referred the matter to the Director of Public Prosecutions. The DPP has asked the detectives of the Sussex police force who investigated the killing to make a new report and review their former evidence. A report had already been sent in February “But no new information has been included.” (Sunday News 9 September 1984) Wallace claimed to have had access to information from a secret military file on Kincora. According to Quinn, “He is outside our jurisdiction, but we have no information that he has information relevant to the inquiry.”
Captain Holroyd, former member of the Special Military Intelligence Unit (SMIU), besides his revelations to Duncan Campbell in the New Statesman, has also been talking to Frank Doherty of the Irish Sunday News. He revealed (30 September 1984) that he handed over a notebook dated May 1973 which showed that the sexual abuse of boys at Kincora was known to Army Intelligence. The notebook was marked ‘Kincora queers’. It named two prominent Belfast politicians, and was handed over to a Detective Chief Inspector in the Royal Ulster Constabulary. Holroyd claims Wallace was given the boot from the army because he disagreed with things which were going on. “I can say that Capt. Wallace – the Captain rank was a cover, Colin Wallace was a civil servant – was a victim of the system …. he suffered dismissal, later changed to resignation, because he spoke out against the methods being used by intelligence staff.” Holroyd says Wallace was ‘neutralised’ by MI5 because of what he knew. Did that go as far as fitting him for murder?
Wallace’s precise position in Northern Ireland still isn’t clear. It was said that he was the assistant of Major Ronnie Sampson, CO of British Army’s Psy Ops unit. But Holroyd claims that Wallace, the press man at Army HQ, “had little or nothing to do with the Psy Ops Unit, although he often liked to hint to journalists that he did. The nearest he got to it was when he passed it on his way to work on the Army press desk further along the same corridor.” (Sunday News 12 June 1983)
The ‘black propaganda’ operations were run from an office on the ground floor of the operations block at Thiepval Barracks in Lisburn, Northern Ireland. According to Holroyd the propaganda was carefully controlled and directed from London, run by a section of IRD, the Information and Research Department, formed in the days of the cold war as a propaganda unit. It was directly linked to MI6.
One of those linked to IRD was Sunday Times reporter, David Holden, who was a regular resident at Belfast’s Europa Hotel. Holden, who was shot dead in mysterious circumstances in Cairo in 1976, was an MI6 officer working in Ireland under cover as a Sunday Times journalist. He was a close friend of Sir Frank Howard Smith with whom he served in Washington at the time of the Guy Burgess defection. Smith was a career MI6 officer who served as UK civil representative in Northern Ireland from 1970, and who set up the contemporary British intelligence system in Ireland. He was head of MI5, retiring in June, 1981.
It may be relevant that the head of IRD from 1972 to 1976, Thomas Christopher Barker, spent a few months in Northern Ireland in 1976 as Under Secretary at the Northern Ireland office in Belfast. He retired on leaving the post, in 1976. Was this a special operation?
Sir Brooks Richards came up in another Sunday News Kincora article (22 April 1984). It was claimed that one Michael Bettaney was going to reveal at his trial that Sir Maurice Oldfield, former head of MI6 and Ulster security co-ordinator, was heavily involved in Kincora. This failed when, on orders from Richards, head of the Joint Intelligence Committee, it was arranged to hold the trial in secret session.
Bettaney was posted to Stormont in 1976 when British intelligence knew precisely what was happening at Kincora. Two of his colleagues were Peter England, MI5, who was later charged with an offence against a boy, and another ‘civil servant’ intelligence man who was stabbed to death in his London flat by a boyfriend. Bettaney operated from Thiepval Barracks in a first floor office known as the ‘Box 500 suite’. One of his cover names was Mr Edmond. He often met local politicians and policemen who thought he was a Home Office official. One of his favourite haunts was a hotel near Hollywood where he drank with civil servants. Another was a small restaurant at Hillsborough.
Bettaney knew Northern Ireland from top to bottom. He was the number 2 man in the MI5 at Lisburn. He had access to every ‘P’ (personnel) computer file on almost half a million people in Northern Ireland, and to every Special Branch or Military Intelligence ‘source’ report. He also trained many intelligence men who are still serving in the province.
Albert Christopher Johnston, a British Army sergeant in charge of cadet force training, admitted more than 30 sexual offences against boys over a 15 year period. He was a Paisleyite ‘born again’ Christian and a friend of William McGrath. Johnson doubled up as a youth leader at the Manor Street Boys Club in North Belfast. When charged it was said that about 300 people would be questioned in what was described as a ‘massive investigation’. (Phoenix 14 Oct.1983)
Billy Harte, Irish national organiser of the YMCA and sometime evangelical preacher, quit his post after the discovery by vice detectives of him stuck in a compromising position with a young Algerian schoolmaster. Harte is another long-term friend of McGrath’s and alleged visitor to Kincora. When arrested Harte initially claimed to police in London that he was a senior civil servant at Stormont, hoping perhaps to secure immunity from prosecution. (Phoenix 5 Aug. 1983)
Tommy Edgar, bachelor friend of John McKeague, was found dead with a gunshot wound behind the ear, the hallmark of a professional kill. (Phoenix 21 January 1983). An RUC spokesman said the killing was not sectarian and the UDA denied it was connected to a loyalist feud. Edgar (29) was a leading figure in the Woodvale Defence Association which was founded by McKeague. He was a friend of Michael Wright, also dead. (See Lobster 3)
Lt. Alan Gingles, ex UDR, who was blown up by a bomb he was planting in Mozambique in 1982, had been a prominent figure in Tara, the paramilitary group linked to Kincora. Gingles was still a reserve officer in the British forces while a lieutenant in the South African Army.
Another UDR man who died in Southern Africa was John McLaurin, from Belfast. He moved to South Africa before joining the Rhodesian SAS in 1979. He died a few weeks later in another mysterious explosion. (Phoenix 18 March 1983)
See Lobsters 1 / 3 / 4 for previous Kincora coverage.
SD