PSNI use debts in bid to recruit informer

A County Tyrone man on the verge of bankruptcy has said the PSNI police offered him two hundred pounds to “set up” a prominent dissident republican.

Francis Carty said a PSNI officer promised his #200,000 debts and mortgage would be cleared if he spied on Kevin Murphy, a 32 County Sovereignty Movement member previously charged and acquitted of involvement with the Real IRA.

In a bizarre turn of events, Carty handed the PSNI man’s contact details to Murphy and other dissidents who phoned the officer three times, pretending to be Carty, and taped the conversations.

In the recordings of two conversations which have been released to the media, ‘Carty’ was told his financial situation would be “sorted” once he “came across”.

A man, who identified himself as a PSNI officer, asked ‘Carty’ to meet police at a McDonalds restaurant, opposite the Asda supermarket in Cookstown.

During the conversations last Tuesday, ‘Carty’ expressed concern that his life would be in danger from dissidents should he do so, but was told not to worry. So keen were police to recruit him that the officer volunteered to pay for a taxi to drive him from Coalisland to Cookstown, rather than wait to meet him the next night.

Having misled the PSNI officer, the republican pretending to be Carty then revealed his identity and other dissidents shouted insults down the phone at the officer.

Carty is related to former political prisoner Kevin Murphy who, in February 2003, was acquitted of Real IRA membership and possessing a rocket launcher.

His lawyer argued he’d been set up by Gareth O’Connor, a Special Branch informer. O’Connor disappeared in May 2003. Two years later, his body was found in Newry canal.

Murphy told the Sunday Tribune that, over the past four months, 21 people had contacted the Sovereignty Movement complaining that the PSNI had attempted to recruit them to spy on him or set him up.

He said nine people had made statements to solicitors.

“Those approached have been fellow republicans or neighbours and relations with no politics. They’ve almost all been employed in the building trade and are in financial trouble.

“The cops are using the recession to try to force people to become informers. Police know the exact debt people owe banks or building societies, right down to the last penny.”

Murphy alleged such approaches showed dissidents had been gaining recruits and the PSNI’s campaign to encourage nationalists to pass on information voluntarily was failing.

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