William Matchett: Supergrass revival in legacy since 1998 has targeted loyalists and excluded the main terrorist protagonist, republicans

As it turned out, republican terrorists out-murdered loyalist terrorists by 2:1, accounting for some 90% of all deaths. Almost all the remaining 10% were lawful killings by security forces, invariably in high threat situations.

Both extremes were deeply sectarian agencies. After 11 years of tit-for-tat mayhem, the supergrass system was destined to stop it. The chief constable’s Annual Report (1983) shows an “overall reduction of 61% in terrorist crime,” including the murder rate in north Belfast reducing by 73%, due to the supergrass initiative.

If you had cancer and there was a proven treatment - supergrass initiatives devastated the Red Brigades in Italy, gangsters in London and Mafia in America – there’d be public uproar if it was not made available to you in the NHS.

Eamon Collins was in the supergrass programme. He witnessed his organisation conspiring with loyalists to undermine it, chiefly through influencing journalists.

Collins was never forgiven for his betrayal and despite a PIRA indemnity (he retracted his evidence) was murdered in the most vicious way a year after the peace deal.

Chief constable Sir John Hermon noted that both sets of terrorists did everything they could to end the supergrass initiative: “These means included criminal conspiracy, intimidation, threats of death and various attempts to influence the public through the media.”

By 1983, 405 had been charged. The magic number is 250. This is how many republicans serving stiff sentences it took to force the aggressor to sue for peace. The data speaks volumes.

Tragically for so many, a criminal justice initiative that destroyed other highly organised criminal groups failed here. The reason advanced by bleeding heart liberals is non-jury Diplock courts.

Italy, England and US had a jury. The thinking, a jury is needed if justice is to be seen to be fair. Yet, the greatest miscarriages of justice in the Troubles were jury trials – Birmingham Six and Guildford Four.

Diplock and jury courts had roughly the same acquittal rate. Indeed, detectives experienced in both rated the Diplock court harder to get a conviction out of.

Upsetting liberal sensitivities is not a fatal side effect, ending the supergrass initiative is, was Hermon’s advice. Some 14 years before it happened, peace beckoned but vanished when the supergrass system collapsed in 1983.

Typical of the day, discontent in Dublin. One TD in 1982 named an individual, parading him a victim in declaring he was innocent and falsely implicated by a supergrass. Armed to the teeth and attempting murder when shot dead by the SAS, the republican movement lauded this ‘innocent’ man for his ‘volunteer’ activities dating from the 1970s.

Lots of families were plunged into awful grief when this seasoned serial killer was freed. How many others in the 405 can this be said of?

The ‘no jury’ argument diminishes the independence of judges and their huge courage. Some were murdered. Perhaps the most infamous incident, a PIRA bomb that killed Lord Justice Gibson and his wife Cecily in 1987.

The ‘no jury’ argument carries even less weight given zero concern in Dublin and the lack of media outrage at the supergrass revival in legacy. The big difference between then and now, no republican spin doctors shaping ‘stop supergrasses’ headlines because nobody in the dock was a republican.

A legacy supergrass put the police on trial in the public eye for being complicit in the murder of innocent Catholics, with republican propagandists still swaying the media.

There have been three supergrass trials (2011, 2013, 2024) since Easter 1998. Going by the 2:1 ratio, this would manifest as two for republican terrorists and one for loyalist terrorists. Yet, all three involved loyalists. Under the Royal Ulster Constabulary, the supergrass initiative targeted both extremes. Under legacy, it targeted only one.

My point is not that accomplice evidence is redundant, despite the recent failures, but that the case selection in the politics of peace has been discriminatory by excluding republicans. This is not equality. But it is legacy.

​

William Matchett is author of Secret Victory: The Intelligence War that Beat the IRA.