A judge in Belfast Crown Court freed RUC officer Allen McQuade on
a 12 month suspended sentence saying his long RUC service saved
him from a prison sentence.
The court heard how McQuade covered the tracks of an RUC sergeant
after a drugs package ``vanished'' from Newtownabbey RUC barracks.
The drugs had been handed in by a couple after it had been posted
to their Co Antrim home under a bogus name in March 1997.
The RUC sergeant, whose name was withheld during the court case,
took the drugs off McQuade telling him to ``say nothing more about
it''. McQuade later claimed he knew nothing about the drugs when
one of the couple called the barracks to see if anything had
developed in the case.
The 20 year RUC veteran McQuade admitted obstructing other RUC
members investigating the drugs disappearance from the
Newtownabbey barracks. RUC killer Allen Moore who killed three
people in Sinn Fein's Lower Falls office with an automatic
shotgun in February 1992 was the subject of an inquiry in
Newtownabbey barracks prior to the attack. Moore had been
suspended from duty after firing shots from his personal issue
revolver over the grave of a colleague. Despite this he was able
to drive from Newtownabbey with the loaded shotgun
A serving member of the RIR, Hugh Dickson, from St Patrick's
Barracks, Ballymena, was in Belfast Magistrates Court last week
charged with possessing a Sterling sub-machine gun with intent to
endanger life.
The RUC alleged that the weapon was found in Dickson's car on
Monday evening, April 27, at a checkpoint on Belfast's Malone
Road.
When charged, Dickson, claimed he was acting under duress.
The RIR, formerly the UDR, has had over a hundred of its members
jailed for involvement in loyalist paramilitary activity
including collusion with loyalist death squads and sectarian
murders.
Better safe...
The Alliance Party leader John Alderdice recently said that ``just
because you're paranoid doesn't mean they're not out to get you''.
Republicans have known this for years as a recent incident
involving one of our supporters in the South of England
highlights.
He opened his front door one morning to find a brown paper parcel
in his porch. It had no visible return address nor a postmark.
So, using a stick, he pushed it into his garden and spent some
time dowsing it with a hose.
When the package was suitably waterlogged he placed a metal bin
lid over it and carefully cut it open only to find one very soggy
stuffed owl inside.
A note with it informed him that he'd won 5th prize in a
republican Easter raffle!
![[An Phoblacht]](http://republican-news.org/graphics/title_gifs/aprn.gif)