Sean Graham Massacre report: Ex-RUC Special Branch officer defends tactic of giving weapons to UDA for intelligence gathering tactic after ‘collusive behaviour’ finding

Dr William Matchett is a former RUC Special Branch Detective Inspector turned academic and international consultant on intelligence led policing.

He was speaking to the News Letter after Police Ombudsman Marie Anderson concluded that there was “collusive behaviour” by the RUC in 11 UDA murders, including the 1992 attack at the Sean Graham betting shop in Belfast.

The report identified concerns about police returning both “deactivated” and live weapons to a loyalist informant.

Ms Anderson said covert operations involving the deactivation of weapons for the purposes of frustrating major crime could be an effective policing strategy, if accompanied by proper control mechanisms. However, her report pointed out that police “lost control” of the guns, which she said was “collusive” behavior.

The News Letter asked Mr Matchett to explain in what situations a police force might release live or deactivated weapons to agents in a terrorist group it is monitoring.

“A firearm could have been fitted with a tracking device to lead back to an arms dump, or to see where it goes, such as a safe house,” he replied.

He said the agent or “source” handling the weapon would be unaware of the tracking device, which he said can then be used to trigger an arrest operation.

Mr Matchett said that deactivating weapons was designed to make the weapon “inoperable”, which he said “saved many lives”.

A “recovery plan” was drafted to recover the weapon, in cases wheren an agent was under pressure to hand them over quickly to other members of a terror group or a Quartermaster, he said.

“It was tragic that a deactivated weapon was reactivated [in this report],” he said. “How foreseeable that was, I suspect, not as obvious at the time.”

The same tactics were often used with home made explosive, he said, which would often be replaced with a harmless substitute. “A lot of bombs that did not explode for that reason.”

“The aim always was to protect life. How to keep a source as trusted within a gang whilst keeping them alive and also protecting those whom the gang wanted to kill, was fraught with risk. That’s the challenge of defeating a terrorist organisation that is dedicated to mass murder. Proactive intelligence is all about managing risk.”

The News Letter asked the Police Ombudsman to comment on Mr Matchett’s suspicion that it was “not as obvious at the time” as it is now that loyalists could reactivate weapons.

A spokesman for Ms Anderson pointed to her report, where she said: “I am of the view that it would have been clear to police that the UDA/UFF had the technical ability and means to reactivate the relevant Browning pistol.”

He told the News Letter that her investigation was, as she said, “protracted, complex and sensitive” and that having considered the broad range of evidence obtained, she came to “a clear view” that police were aware that loyalists had the capability to reactivate weapons.

In her report she stated that the release of ‘deactivated’ weapons to the UDA Quartermaster, given his knowledge of weaponry “ought, in my view, to have been the subject of an in depth risk assessment by police”.

The News Letter also invited comment from KRW Law and Relatives for Justice, who are both representing victims featured in the report.

The report includes details of RUC conduct in relation to nine loyalist paramilitary attacks, which resulted in eleven murders and multiple attempted murders between 1990 and 1998. All the victims were Catholic. The attacks were:

:: The attempted murder of Mr Samuel Caskey on 9 October 1990;

:: The murder of Mr Harry Conlon on 14 October 1991;

:: The murder of Mr Aidan Wallace on 22 December 1991;

:: The murders of Mr Coleman Doherty, Mr Joseph Duffin, Mr Peter Magee, Mr William McManus and 15 year old James Kennedy on 5 February 1992;

:: The murder of Mr Michael Gilbride on 4 November 1992;

:: The murder of Mr Martin Moran on 23 October 1993 (died 25 October 1993);

:: The murder of Mrs Theresa Clinton on 14 April 1994; and

:: The murder of Mr Larry Brennan on 19 January 1998.

The investigation also examined the circumstances of the murder of John O’Hara on 17 April 1991 but did not publish any details about this yet due to ongoing criminal proceedings.

KRW Law and Relatives for Justice, which represent many of the victims in the report, were also invited to comment.

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