A number of policemen implicated in the Police Ombudsman’s report into collusion between the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and loyalist paramilitaries in the 1990s are still serving in the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), according to senior sources.
A number of policemen implicated in the Police Ombudsman’s report into collusion between the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and loyalist paramilitaries in the 1990s are still serving in the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), according to senior sources.
The report, which will be published tomorrow, concludes that RUC Special Branch officers colluded in 18 murders in the North between 1990 and 2003 committed by a north Belfast Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) gang led by police informer Mark Haddock. ... Read more
Special Branch officers guilty of collusion in loyalist murders in the North are unlikely to be prosecuted despite the Police Ombudsman's explosive report which will be published tomorrow, sources have told the Sunday Tribune.
Nuala O'Loan will state that the handlers of UVF informers, and their superiors, turned a blind eye to over a dozen killings by the UVF's unit in Mount Vernon, north Belfast.
While the report will lead to the re-opening of 10-20 murder cases, the prosecution of Special Branch officers is unlikely because vital intelligence documents have gone missing.
It is believed these documents were destroyed by detectives to protect themselves. While O'Loan has proved a case of collusion which "defies any legitimate legal explanation", the intelligence papers would be vital for a successful prosecution. ... Read more
For the UVF (Ulster Volunteer Force), it was a routine operation.
A small-time criminal owed them some drugs money and he was going to pay up or be killed. Three of the group took Raymond McCord Jr to a disused quarry and beat him to death with iron bars and hammers. The chief murderer was on weekend parole and, with his handlers in Special Branch aware of his paramilitary activities, he thought little about the murder.
Tomorrow, just over nine years since McCord’s murder took place, then a Police Ombudsman’s report into that killing and at least a dozen others is expected to be the most damning ever written about the police in the North.
It points to a trail of collusion between the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) and loyalist paramilitaries in murder, and in extortion, corruption and threats that led to the deaths of 18 people in Belfast until 2003.The report will be a body-blow to the North’s policing legacy. ... Read more
The Police Ombudsman's report into the murder of Raymond McCord Jnr will pose as many questions as it answers. Security writer Brian Rowan reports
When that document of around 200 pages lands on the desks of the Chief Constable and the Secretary of State today, it's likely that it will be everything they feared it would be and more.
The report on Operation Ballast - a Police Ombudsman investigation into murder, informers and the Special Branch - will open up another can of worms inside that dirty world of intelligence.
This will be another damning report. ... Read more
RUC’s Special Branch gave Mount Vernon UVF a licence to kill
17 January 1993, Sharon McKenna:
Two former policemen claim Mark Haddock told them he shot Shraon McKenna dead at the house of an elderly Protestant friend on the Shore Road.
Jonty Brown and Trevor McIlwrath claim Special Branch blocked attempts by them to charge the UVF men involved despite the detectives having the confession.
24 February 1994, Sean McParland:
Murdered by a UVF Special Branch agent from Newtownabbey nicknamed the Beast. The paramilitary is the current boss of the organisation in Southeast Antrim.
No one has been charged with the killing. ... Read more
Northern Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan has found that several RUC Special Branch officers colluded with North Belfast Ulster Volunteer Force members who were involved in more than a dozen murders, senior sources have told The Irish Times.
Her report, which will be published on Monday, finds that a significant number of Special Branch officers were complicit in protecting UVF agents or informers even though they knew they were directly involved in murders of Protestants and Catholics, the sources said.
The report, based on an investigation known as Operation Ballast, is also going to the North's Director of Public Prosecutions who must now decide if former RUC officers should face very serious crime charges.
"There is intelligence within the policing system linking UVF members from its Mount Vernon unit in north Belfast to many killings, and that RUC Special Branch officers protected them from being made accountable to the law," said a senior source yesterday. ... Read more
Mark Haddock is alleged to have been involved in at least a dozen murders over a 10-year period including the shooting of a Catholic woman 14 years ago today (Wednesday)
The two detectives listened in amazement as the UVF informer broke down in tears and admitted the murder of a Catholic taxi driver 24 hours earlier.
It was shortly after 6pm on January 18 1993 when Johnston Brown and Trevor McIlwrath stopped Special Branch agent Mark Haddock's Mini Metro car in a pre-arranged rendezvous at the side of the motorway on the outskirts of north Belfast.
Twenty-four hours earlier good Samaritan Sharon McKenna had been making dinner for a Protestant pensioner in his north Belfast home when Haddock and a second gunman burst in and blasted her with a shotgun. She was shot a second time at point-blank range as she lay on the ground. ... Read more
A damning collusion report by Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan is just five days away from publication.
But the campaigning father who instigated the probe has warned that his battle for justice will be far from over when the watchdog's findings are released.
Raymond McCord has alleged for years that the 1997 murder of his son Raymond Jnr was carried out on the orders of UVF man and police informer Mark Haddock.
He expects to be fully vindicated next Monday, when the Ombudsman's long-awaited report is unveiled at a Press conference in Belfast. ... Read more
Senior RUC officers are believed to have been implicated in a report on an investigation into a series of controversial murders in the North, it emerged tonight.
Their names will be passed to Chief Constable Sir Hugh Orde and Secretary of State Peter Hain when details are published on Monday.
It follows a massive probe by the Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan into how a gang of north Belfast loyalist paramilitaries, some working as Special Branch informants, were allegedly allowed to murder at will.
One of the victims was Catholic taxi driver Sharon McKenna, 27, who was shot in the back 14 years ago tomorrow, while she cooked dinner for a Protestant pensioner friend. ... Read more
The police ombudsman is about to publish explosive evidence of how a UVF gang was allowed to commit a series of murders in the 1990s. Barry McCaffrey reports
RUC agents escaped prosecution for at least a dozen murders because they were protected as informers, Police Ombudsman Nuala O'Loan is expected to confirm.
A long-awaited report, due to be published on Monday, is understood to provide damning evidence that Special Branch effectively allowed a UVF gang operating on the Mount Vernon estate in north Belfast to murder with impunity because more than half were police agents.
While previous investigations by Lord Stevens and retired Canadian judge Peter Cory have highlighted individual cases of security-force collusion with loyalists, Mrs O'Loan's report is expected to confirm that police agents were permitted to carry out at least 12 murders between 1993 and 2002 without fear of prosecution. Some reports suggest the number could be as high as 24. ... Read more
THE attorney general is considering bringing prosecutions against seven Northern Ireland police officers for alleged collusion with loyalist paramilitaries in murders in north Belfast.
Lord Goldsmith has been sent files on the serving and retired officers by Nuala O’Loan, the policing ombudsman. She has conducted an extensive inquiry into the alleged involvement of loyalist agents and their police handlers in the 1990s murders.
Her report, entitled Operation Ballast, is due to be published next week despite attempts by lawyers acting for more than 20 officers to have it halted so their clients can study the contents. Chris Mehaffey, the ombudsman’s senior investigating officer, has refused to allow the officers advance notification. ...Read more
A report due to be published by Northern Ireland police ombudsman Nuala O’Loan is expected to provide ‘‘damning’’ evidence that the Special Branch allowed loyalist informers to carry out more than a dozen murders of innocent people. A report due to be published by Northern Ireland police ombudsman Nuala O’Loan is expected to provide ‘‘damning’’ evidence that the Special Branch allowed loyalist informers to carry out more than a dozen murders of innocent people. O’Loan’s report is expected to be published in the coming weeks. It is understood to provide some of the most serious evidence ever uncovered on the murders.... Read more
A former RUC detective who has alleged that Special Branch allowed informers to commit murder last night (Friday) said he has been told his personal details are in the hands of the UVF. Johnston Brown was speaking after being released without charge from questioning by Police Ombudsman officers investigating alleged attempts to pervert the course of justice. The arrest of Mr Brown and his former colleague Trevor McIlwrath are connected to an ombudsman investigation into claims that former UVF leader Mark Haddock was allowed to commit a series of murders because he was a Special Branch agent.
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