Former British spy sued over alleged roll in IRA shooting

Proceedings have been issued against Peter Keeley by victim Peter McCabe and seven members of his family for the trauma of the gun attack at their home in Newry, Co Down 31 years ago.

At the High Court yesterday a judge listed their actions for a full hearing next year - where the ex-double agent is expected to be subpoenaed to give evidence.

It represents the first time that proceedings against him have moved to a trial date.

Mr McCabe, 62, was shot multiple times after masked IRA men entered his home in September 1990. Papers lodged by his lawyers allege that Keeley was among the gang who subjected the victim to “an unlawful and brutal punishment-style attack”.

He is now being sued along with the Ministry of Defence and the Chief Constable.

Members of the McCabe family are claiming negligence, misfeasance in public office, and the intentional infliction of harm.

Keeley is widely reported to be a British soldier who infiltrated the IRA using the pseudonym Kevin Fulton.

In his memoir ‘Unsung Hero’ Fulton describes a punishment shooting carried out on an unidentified man. That victim is understood to be Mr McCabe.

Despite a dispute over who actually wrote the book, the plaintiffs lawyers believe they can connect Keeley to its authorship.

A two-week hearing of the action has now been set for November 2022.

Outside court the McCabe family’s solicitor, Kevin Winters, alleged: “Peter Keeley, aka Kevin Fulton, has been given a de facto amnesty from investigation and prosecution by the State.

“He set up dozens of incidents, such as the attack on the McCabe family, which resulted in death, injury, imprisonment and other human rights abuses on a wide scale.”

Military agencies had oversight of those activities, according to the lawyer.

“It was facilitated as part of State intelligence control of the Provisional IRA in Newry and south Down in the 1980s and early 1990s,” continued Mr Winters. “Since the police cannot investigate this incident or any others Keeley was involved in, we turn to the High Court for a civil remedy to expose what was effectively Republican-State collusion on an industrial scale.”