Slugger O'Toole: Licensed to kill..?

It would be unfair not to note that there have also been many odd instances of alleged LVF members facing serious charges in court, only for those charges to be mysteriously dropped by the DPP without explanation.

The idea of informers and agents is to garner information to save lives. But because useful informers are sometimes up to their necks in it or career criminals - and yet are protected by the State - it can lead to the situation we have in Belfast today - loyalist Stakeknives.

At what point does the information provided by a covert source no longer outweigh the level of terrorist or criminal activity he is engaged in? What should the State's response be when a source may be causing more lives to be lost than saved? Is it really in the public interest that the State protects career criminals and multiple murderers?

The spectre of hundreds of UVF supporters recently occupying an east Belfast estate while the PSNI stood and watched - ironically, opposite the police training college - makes you wonder what lesson the post-Patten recruits will really learn about who really runs the streets, and what the Government regards as an acceptable level of loyalist violence and intimidation.

David Ervine recently admitted that the PUP has no power to intervene and stop the loyalist feud. You might think that with no political restraint on the UVF whatsoever, that it might be the right time for the Government to make a move and treat the situation more seriously than it currently is doing. It might well be convenient for some if certain loyalists took a few secrets to their grave, but the problem for the rest of us is that uninvolved people get caught in the crossfire causing families unbearable misery.

Why is the freedom of a UVF serial killer more important to the State than the lives of his 13 victims?

Who exactly is in charge around here?

From yesterday's Irish News:

Will to prosecute UVF has been sapped from the top
18/08/2005
Opinion
By Eye of Newt

The PSNI is sitting on a bomb and the clock is ticking. Before this year is out the police ombudsman will publish a report into the 1997 murder of Raymond McCord jnr. The initial findings, which were widely leaked two years ago, suggest that an informer in the Mount Vernon UVF has murdered at least 13 people since his recruitment in 1993. Special Branch is alleged to have covered up each case. The list of victims is mostly Protestant but includes the all too familiar roll-call of randomly selected Catholics plus the clearly psychotic butchering of Portadown teenagers Andrew Robb and David McIlwaine. When the report breaks the fall-out will be spectacular. British Irish Rights Watch, which has already presented its own confidential findings to the American, British and Irish governments, says the case is: “As bad as it gets.”

At least one more high-ranking UVF informer is likely to be exposed but the harshest glare will fall on those in authority who have humoured the phantom of political loyalism without any regard for human life. This is another all too familiar roll-call.

Successive secretaries of state and security ministers – up to and including the present incumbents – have persistently refused to review the UVF ‘ceasefire’ despite 30 murders since 1994. Nobody has been convicted for any of those murders, making it absurdly obvious that both the police and the Prosecution Service are under political instruction.

The Northern Ireland Office refused extra funding for the ombudsman’s inquiry, delaying it by two years, during which eight of the 30 murders were committed.

The additional funding requested was £5 million – roughly what the children’s commissioner has cost over the same period. The chief constable blocked publication of the coroner’s report into the murder of David McIlwaine on security grounds, a move that can only have been made to protect an informer. Everyone involved in these decisions will shortly have to explain them in terms of a preventable death toll exceeding that of the Omagh bomb. It is perfectly possible to justify the use of dangerous informers and it is far too easy to criticise the horrendous compromises necessary when only evil people can provide good information. Shortly after his recruitment the Mount Vernon informer is thought to have led police to a UVF weapons dump and doubtless supplied further useful intelligence. Might he have saved lives overall? Former Special Branch detective Johnston Brown – who put Johnny Adair away only to see Mo Mowlam release him – definitely doesn’t think so.

Speaking about the case on UTV two years ago, Mr Brown said: “Could we have put the majority of the Mount Vernon UVF in jail in 1997, 1998, 1999? Absolutely. Lives would have been saved time and time again. There appeared to be no will to prosecute certain individuals.”

Given the attempts at every level to frustrate Nuala O’Loan’s inquiry it seems that the will to prosecute the UVF has been sapped from the top.

The great and the good of amoral peace processing – Number 10 policy advisor Jonathan Powell springs especially to mind – remain determined to pursue identical policies towards republicans and loyalists although it has been plain for years that loyalists are not responding.

No doubt Number 10 blames working-class Protestants for not supporting David Ervine as instructed. No doubt too this makes the predominantly working class Protestant body count easier to bear. But only for a little while longer. As the UVF runs increasingly amok every unpunished outrage will only serve to underscore that looming report. Excuses that never washed in the first place will finally be hung out to dry.

What are informers for if their information is never used?

Why are prosecutions withheld for lack of evidence when informers can turn Queen’s evidence – and the law was changed after Omagh to make a senior police officer’s testimony sufficient evidence regardless?

How many loyalist murders did the NIO think were worth one loyalist MLA?

Was it more than 30, perhaps?

How many loyalist murders did it think were worth a two-year breather?

More than eight, apparently.

As the convenient flag of the Mount Vernon UVF now rises above the typically elusive killers of 15-year-old Thomas Devlin, the smell of fudge again pervades the air.

Hugh Orde, Peter Hain and Jonathan Powell need to wake up and smell the coffee.

They have less than three months to put the UVF out of business – before the UVF puts them out of business.

Permanently.

Excellent piece. A superb indictment of govt. policy in this are.

"Hugh Orde, Peter Hain and Jonathan Powell need to wake up and smell the coffee. They have less than three months to put the UVF out of business – before the UVF puts them out of business."

Let's hope they read it. It's a complete joke that in this new peaceful era in Northern Ireland gangs of thugs with guns and worse are running around murdering and bullying large swathes of the population.

The police have spent that long standing back doing (apparently) nothing that it will now require some drastic steps to redress the situation - I just wish I knew what those steps might be, but arresting the scumbags attacking churches and homes in Ballymena would be a start.

Maybe I'm a bit dense, but if there's a high-profile, wee-known informer in the Mount Vernon UVF - why don't the UVF just get rid of him? Do they like being informed on or what?

A good question and the obvious answer is that all the senior men are informers, which wouldn't surprise me in the slightest.

Wouldn't surprise me either, though that would raise even more questions of the authorities.

Tremendous article by Newt. Well done sir. Watch your back.

This highlight why many of us have absolutely no faith in the PSNI. Much of this state collusion with loyalist [and probably 'republican'] criminals has gone seamlessly from the RUC to the PSNI without so much as a hicup. If and when government ministers sit on serving offices to stop them doing their duty, they, bar the odd exception simply roll over and accept it as the norm. These days there are many avenues open to them to bring this government collusion to the light of day if they so wished. One only has to have witnessed how the attempt by the Met to cover up the murder of Mr Jean Charles de Menezes came to light, to understand this. The stables are full of filth, it would be interesting to know how new recruits are told to deal with such corruption, I have no doubt they are told to look the other way and leave it to the corrupt officers to deal with it.

The DUP have objections to a 50/50 split in recruitment for the psni. It would make you wonder why.
Sooner or later the scale of corruption has to become public. The more nationalists enlisted may make it more difficult to hide how rotten the service really is. It should only be a matter of time before a whistle blower appears.

The fifth column may already be deployed. ;0)_

Respect, as ever, to Newt - this one would appear to be the most reprehensible and transparently outrageous carry-on yet in the grim canon of British security service machinations in the North. Makes you forget for one millisecond that its actually Sinn Feinn/IRA that are the greatest threat to peace and stability in the 'province' (yeah right).

I have been a regular 'slugger' reader only for the past year and i and have not contributed to the discussion as I have become part of what has become the "brain drain" from NI, province, 6 counties etc. and have decided to escape with my new wife ( who happens to kick with the opposite foot)and did not feel that, given the feelings of regular contributors, my opinion, from across the water, would be relevant. I have no time for SF nor the loyalists. Nevertheless, when a petrol bomb is thrown in my old housing estate in Banbridge (which should have been 'Omagh' let's not forget)against an elected representative, democracy is undermined. I'm sure this is way off the point and if the moderater wants to cut this then, fair enough! I feel however that if the violence against Catholic communities in Antrim continues without any meaningful condemnation from the leadership of Unionism (I think my inference is clear)that the reasonable Protestants in Ulster have a responsibility not only to their denomination or loyal orders but to their monarchy to protect the law abiding Catholic citizens in a county of the UK where racial (the term is used wisely) violence is seen as acceptable.

By the way, God rest you Mo. It's a pity ther aren't more like you. I hope my next post is more articulate but there you go...

well said thebeast, I for one hope you continue to comment. The boot is clearly on the other foot now, all the unionist dirty laundry\collusion\ corruption must be exposed. Everyone seems happy to await the outcome of the monitoring committee on IRA activities. Something like that :)

I don't know what you're all moaning about. The "Peace Process" is all about allowing terrorists to kill their enemies with impunity.

Sean

absolutley

There will probably be a branch of the public sector dealing with "internal housekeeping". Or maybe just a government grant.

Man arrested in teen murder probe

Of course he will be released without charge by Monday!

MickHall:

"This highlight why many of us have absolutely no faith in the PSNI. Much of this state collusion with loyalist [and probably 'republican'] criminals has gone seamlessly from the RUC to the PSNI without so much as a hicup."

Absolutely none? If your car was stolen, house was burgled, or you were being harassed by a neighbour, who would most people turn to and have some prospect of a response or even a result, even in nationalist areas?

Having one of the guys who investigated collusion in charge of the PSNI must count at least as a small hicup.

I would not rush to judgement on the PSNI, doing things by legal means takes more time than by illegal means.

They have already had some success in bringing down ordinary crime figures.

If you want to call for selective internment and scrapping of human rights safeguards I would also say its a bit early.

Presumably, if it is true about all these informers being protected, the police must believe that the retention of informers is valuable, because the information they provide is valuable.

This makes sense to me. However, what I don't understand is what the police does with this supposedly valuable information.

For the information to be valuable, surely it must enable the police to prevent loyalist terrorist activity, and/or to gather evidence in order to bring charges against the loyalist "top brass".

While during the Troubles the above did seem to happen, it does not appear to be happening now, in which case, the value attached to the information provided by informers would seem to be much diminished.

In which case ... time for a rethink?

Greenerfields, do you happen to have next week's lottery numbers?

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/uk_news/northern_ireland/4170556.stm


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