Republican News · Thursday 14 March 2002

PSNI recruit RUC as collusion controversy continues

BY LAURA FRIEL

Former RUC officers who have benefited from massive pay offs and pensions are being re-employed by the PSNI, it has been confirmed.

In recent years, hundreds of RUC officers have accepted financially lucrative early retirement deals in line with the Patten Report's promise of a new beginning for policing. But it has emerged that many of these former RUC officers are now being recruited back into the force by the PSNI.

Some former RUC and Special Branch members have been re-employed under the guise of civilian technicians or, as one PSNI spokesperson put it, "there are loads of people back doing things they did as police officers".

Sinn Féin Chief Whip Alex Maskey said that the revelation underlined the fact that we do not have a new beginning to policing. "We do not have a representative policing service and the British government are not willing to bring one into existence," he said.

The PSNI's recruitment of former RUC officers came to light as the Ombudsman's Office has been asked to investigate another incident of collusion and cover up by the RUC and its Special Branch operatives.

According to recent revelations, in 1974 a Special Branch officer ambushed three RUC colleagues, seriously wounding two, of which one was permanently disabled. The third RUC man escaped injury in what has been described as a triple murder attempt. The incident, and the chief suspect, a Special Branch detective, has been connected to the killing of Catholic RUC Sergeant Joe Campbell three years later.

The first incident took place in July 1974 on the outskirts of Cushendall. In the vehicle at the time of the attack were RUC Reservists Andrew Kennedy and Bob Thompson and RUC Sergeant Jack McDonald, now deceased. It has been suggested that McDonald was the target of the 1974 gun attack because of his close association with Campbell.

It is believed that the Special Branch officer at the centre of the controversy had been involved in a series of robberies and mock attacks on locally based Crown forces personnel.

Campbell had inadvertently become aware of the irregular nature of the Special Branch officer's activities and may have shared his information with McDonald.

Campbell was shot dead outside Cushendall RUC barracks on February 25 1977 after responding to a mysterious telephone call to his home. His family have always believed there was Crown forces collusion in his killing.

informer, recruited as an agent by RUC Special Branch to spy on local republicans, and a member of the British SAS are also believed to have been involved. The Special Branch officer in question acted as the informer's handler.

According to one version, the SAS officer died in a car crash some years ago outside Lisburn but recent media reports have suggested the soldier is not only "very much alive" but also still serving with the British Army.

But the big question is not whether or not the Special Branch detective and his shadowy associates were or were not engaged in illegal activity, but whether they were simply engaged in criminality or more sinister covert operations sanctioned by whom and for what purpose.

The subsequent cover up appears to suggest the latter and involved not only the RUC hierarchy, including three successive Chief Constables, but also the Justice establishment within the north.

In his investigation into allegations of crown force collusion detailed in 'The Committee', Sean McPhilemy argues that Campbell became a target because he uncovered more than the criminal activities of a 'rogue' cop.

"He had discovered that police officers, army agents, double agents and loyalists were colluding in a wide range of terrorist activities, acting as agents provocateurs and running 'dirty tricks' operations against Catholics in his police district in an effort to discredit the IRA," he wrote.

"Shootings and bombings, which had been attributed to the IRA, had turned out to be semi official, low intensity counter guerrilla operations run by the security services."

In the interests of Britain's dirty war, it appears that even the lives of fellow Crown forces members are expendable. And now one of the survivors has asked the Ombudsman to investigate.

Among the many aspects of these incidents the Ombudsman will no doubt consider is the claim that prior intelligence reports exposed a pending threat against RUC Sergeant Campbell posed by the Special Branch detective but no steps appear to have been taken to prevent the killing.

The secret reports regarding activities of the Special Branch detective at the centre of the controversy were ordered by the then head of Special Branch, Assistant Chief Constable Mick Slevin and were compiled by other Special Branch officers.

The files also reveal that the weapon used in the 1974 ambush of three RUC officers was subsequently handed over by the Special Branch detective to another RUC colleague. The report records that ballistic tests carried out on the pistol confirmed it was the weapon used in the attack.

The Ombudsman will also hear a secretly taped interview with the Special Branch detective's former landlady, who claims she saw him take a rifle from her property on the night of the 1974 shooting. Apparently, the landlady also gives an alleged reason for the attack.

In 1980, a Special Branch detective was arrested and charged in relation to the Campbell killing. He went on trial in 1982 facing some 27 charges, including having explosives, firearms and carrying out armed robberies.

At trial, the RUC man was acquitted of the murder but was convicted and jailed on bank robbery charges. These convictions were subsequently overturned on appeal.

Despite the fact that, according to the recently discovered secret files, there was evidence to connect the detective with both the 1974 ambush and 1977 fatal shooting, the prosecution had relied on one main witness.

The chief prosecution witness at the original trial was the Special Branch handler's own informant, who at the time was already serving an 18-year jail sentence. As an agent for the RUC Special Branch, subterfuge was stock in trade. As a witness, the informer was easily discredited on appeal.

Curiously, after the Special Branch detective was released on the grounds that the chief prosecution witness was deemed a liar, the informer-turned-accuser was also given early release just a few months after his handler. Inexplicably, the informer was given a royal pardon by the then Secretary of State.

Meanwhile, the family of loyalist gunman Billy Wright have reiterated their call for a public inquiry into possible state collusion in the killing. Wright was shot dead while serving a sentence in Long Kesh prison in December 1997.

According to media reports prior to his death, Wright kept secret tapes and a prison journal that may be revealed if his family succeed in their call for an inquiry.