How the RUC protected the UDA

Posted by Jim on November 19, 2016

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A big arms find in UDA’s Belfast HQ in 1981 proved embarrassing for a
British government resisting calls to outlaw the group but trying to
appear even-handed. An extract from ‘A State in Denial: The British
Government and Loyalist Paramilitaries’ by Margaret Urwin.
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In terms of the politics of proscription [of the UDA], we have always
regarded the existence of such denials as more important than their
accuracy. – C. Davenport, NIO official

On 26 May 1981, at the height of tensions over the IRA/INLA hunger
strike, the RUC searched the headquarters of the UDA in Newtownards
Road, Belfast, and discovered the following weapons: one Thompson
sub-machine gun, six home-made Sten guns, a .45 revolver and 550 rounds
of ammunition. According to official records UDA man Robert McDevitt was
arrested, while Andy Tyrie was merely interviewed. However, The Irish
Times stated that two men were arrested along with Tyrie. The discovery
prompted a debate amongst top civil servants, ministers and the chief
constable. If involvement in outright sectarian murders was not
sufficient cause to ban the UDA, would catching the organisation
red-handed, with a deadly arms cache in its headquarters, be enough?
Surely a Rubicon of sorts had been crossed?

This certainly triggered a flurry of internal memos between senior NIO
officials. Assistant Secretary Stephen Boys-Smith, wrote to P. W. J.
Buxton about the arms discovery, noting Buxton’s views at a meeting with
the secretary of state the previous day regarding UDA proscription.
Buxton had told Humphrey Atkins:

“The UDA is not now engaged in violence although it might be ready to
resort to or encourage violence in extreme situations. The organisation
reflects certain strands of the thinking of the Protestant community and
it would be a substantial step to proscribe it.”

This statement was simply untrue. The UDA was, at that time, engaged in
violence. In March, it killed Paul Blake, a Catholic, and – just ten
days before the arms find – another Catholic, Patrick Martin. Buxton
also ignored the high-profile attempted murder of the McAliskeys.

Some senior NIO officials had certainly been expecting an upsurge in UDA
violence in response to the election of IRA hunger-striker Bobby Sands
in the Fermanagh/south Tyrone by-election held on 9 April 1981. David
Blatherwick had written to D. J. Wyatt in April stating that they were
aware ‘that the UDA is currently considering a major escalation in
violence as a response to Sands’ victory’.

At a meeting on 1 June Atkins expressed concern that the police had
failed to make arrests following the discovery of the arms and had not
sought extensions of detention while pursuing their enquiries.
Justifiably, he worried that the police would not be seen to have acted
as might have been expected had a similar discovery been made elsewhere,
rather than at UDA headquarters.

In a note to John Blelloch, deputy secretary, NIO, dated 3 June, Buxton
reported on his questioning of the chief constable, Sir John Hermon, the
previous night about the failure to bring charges; he had put it to
Hermon that he could have used Section 9 of the Northern Ireland
(Emergency Provisions) Act 1978 to do so.

Buxton had advised that Section 9 provided that when arms were found ‘in
premises of which a person was the occupier and which he habitually used
otherwise than as a member of the public’, that might be accepted as
sufficient proof of illegal possession of arms, unless the person could
prove ignorance. The section reversed the onus of proof – under Section
9 a person was not presumed innocent until proven guilty, but rather had
to prove their innocence. Hermon had agreed that it had proven useful in
other cases. In what appears to be a barely veiled criticism of the
chief constable, Buxton advised Blelloch that ‘Hermon still needs to
focus on the continued possibility of laying charges’.

It was a busy time for Buxton. In a long memo to the secretary of
state’s private secretary, he discussed the arms discovery and echoed
the secretary of state’s regrets that it was dealt with at divisional
level without reference to RUC headquarters.

Either Andy Tyrie had very strong powers of persuasion, or the RUC
regarded arms finds in the loyalist community very differently from arms
finds in the republican community. After the local detective chief
superintendent had taken him and the relevant UDA keyholders in for
questioning, they had satisfied their interrogators they had no
connection with or knowledge of the arms and were soon released without
charge, including McDevitt. Buxton reported that the chief constable had
conceded that it might have been ‘convenient’ to hold them for a couple
of days, but, he added, the action taken, ‘professionally speaking’, was
defensible. He explained that the UDA was a tenant of the property, not
the owner, and the NIO had been unable to establish the status of other
properties in which the UDA had an interest. He argued that if the UDA
were proscribed, it would cause the organisation no difficulty to
‘declare themselves under another name’ and re-register properties under
that name.

Buxton then presented the pros and cons of proscription. Points in
favour were that statements by Andy Tyrie in recent months had come
close to admissions of direct involvement in the ‘direction of
terrorism’. In The Washington Star the previous week, Tyrie had defended
assassinations and taken responsibility for ‘the small offensive unit
called UFF’. The arms find at UDA headquarters lent tangible credence to
these statements. Inaction by the government would put its credibility
and that of the RUC at risk when they claimed an even-handed approach to
law enforcement, he said. Proscription would please the Irish government
and Irish-American circles and might act as a ‘sweetener’ to the
‘beleaguered Catholic community’.

The points against proscription were that Tyrie had played a ‘generally
helpful’ role in stabilising loyalist opinion. If the UDA were to be
proscribed, he would lose control, creating a ‘second front’ for the
security forces when they were fully stretched on the main front,
combatting the IRA. They could expect disturbances in Protestant areas,
just when the marching season was beginning; the conviction of UDA
wrongdoers would be more difficult, given the ‘general disaffection’ and
drying up of intelligence sources. It would alienate the ‘Protestant
community’, even those who had no sympathy with the UDA; the
organisation had just unveiled some worthy plans for a new political
movement – proscription would probably nip that in the bud.

Buxton imparted the views of Hermon, who he said was firmly of the view
that this was an inopportune time to proscribe the UDA. In Hermon’s
view, two conditions would have to be satisfied – the politico-security
scene must be quiet (meaning that the hunger strike crisis must be
past), and the UDA should have developed politically to a point ‘where
the mass of dormant membership and the “social welfare/community worker”
elements had been syphoned off, leaving a rump of hard men (loosely
speaking the UFF) and an ordinary criminal fringe ripe for
proscription’.

The chief constable had warned Buxton that, if the government decided to
proceed with proscription, it could not count upon his support, and he
hoped to be given the chance to state his views before a final decision
was taken, preferably at a meeting with the secretary of state. Although
not quite a veto, this does seem to be the chief constable exerting an
undue influence on government policy. If ministers decided not to
proscribe for the moment, Hermon would be glad to be quoted in support
of the decision. His chief argument was the ‘demonstrable efforts of the
RUC to bring members of the UDA to book and the obstacles which
proscription would place in their way in the future’.

Buxton agreed that a strong argument could be advanced about the
prosecution of UDA members and suggested it was proof of the RUC’s bona
fides in claiming an even-handed approach and no sanctuary for the UDA.
He suggested that, in security terms, proscription would be
counterproductive and politically would tend to aggravate rather than
ease intercommunal tensions and provoke demands for similar action,
which they would be very reluctant to take at present, against
‘supposedly similar’ republican organisations. He concluded by
recommending that the secretary of state should not proscribe the UDA
but should keep the matter under close review, agreeing with Hermon that
if Atkins felt unable to accept his recommendation, he should invite the
chief constable to present his case before a final decision was made.

Boys-Smith, in a most revealing memo, wrote to Blelloch on 5 June,
reminding him of a remark by Atkins that proscription would ‘deprive the
security forces of the access which they presently had to those members
of the UDA who were also active in terrorism’.

As can be seen from the de Silva report into the murder of Pat Finucane,
around 85 per cent of all UDA intelligence information was coming from
the various branches of the British security forces at this time.
Clearly the ‘access’ worked in both directions, and to the UDA’s
benefit. According to a BBC Panorama programme, Lord Stevens, during his
investigations, arrested 210 loyalist paramilitary suspects, of whom 207
were agents or informants for the state.

A document included in de Silva’s report, headed ‘Collusion between the
security forces and loyalist paramilitaries’, observes that the flow of
intelligence to the UDA increased significantly around the time of the
Anglo-Irish Agreement: ‘However, it is assessed that research of
intelligence dating from previous years would be likely to reveal a
similar picture to that given in the attached document.’ Boys-Smith
appreciated that proscription would alienate sections of the ‘Protestant
community’ and agreed that it ‘would not be right at present to
proscribe the UDA’, although he noted that Atkins had again expressed
concern at how the discovery of arms at UDA headquarters and the
associated police action would be interpreted, especially if the UDA was
not proscribed. ‘He feared the Government and police would not appear
impartial, and that, even if there were good grounds for not bringing
prosecutions, they were not ones which would necessarily be understood
in the Catholic community or generally in Great Britain or elsewhere.’

The chief constable, he advised, had called on the secretary of state
later that day. Atkins remarked that Hermon was opposed to proscription
‘at this stage’ as he ‘thought it would be unhelpful to the preservation
of security’. He accepted the chief constable’s advice but told Hermon
he was ‘concerned about the perception of events’, both in terms of the
discovery of arms and the subsequent arrests and about the continuing
police investigation. Boys-Smith commented that the secretary of state
had to be mindful of ‘the questions which would be asked of him in
Parliament and by his colleagues and others in Great Britain’. While he
was ready to answer the suggestion that the UDA should be proscribed
‘because of the misdeeds of a few of its members’ and he had up to then
believed he could do so effectively, the discovery of arms created ‘a
different situation’. The UDA as a whole was seen to be involved, and
Atkins worried that ‘questions about its future were bound to be
raised’. Many people would assume that the UDA’s ‘Chairman’ (Tyrie) and
other officers could be held responsible; ‘this might be the case
particularly with those who knew of Section 9 of the Northern Ireland
(Emergency Provisions) Act 1978’.

Boys-Smith observed that Atkins had suggested the criticism would be
muted if there were arrests and prosecutions. He appreciated that
prosecutions were only possible if there was a reasonable chance of
conviction, but believed ‘a legitimate prosecution which failed in the
courts might be better than no prosecution at all’. He stressed to
Hermon the sensitivity of the situation and the importance of taking
action which would minimise the harmful reaction.

The chief constable reiterated that he did not believe UDA proscription
at the present time was the right way to go and asserted:

“Most UDA members did not act illegally and the organisation was not
active in violence. Only a small core of its members was involved in
terrorism or illegal activities and they were not a sufficient reason
for proscription. There was a good record of success against Protestant
extremists which would be hindered rather than helped by proscription.”

Hermon conceded that ‘the immediate aftermath of the discovery of arms
had been badly handled by his officers’ – the release of the three
suspects ‘had been premature, given the context in which the arrests had
been made, and the decision had not been referred to a suitably senior
level in the Force … He did not believe that charges could be brought
against the officers of the UDA’, notwithstanding Section 9 of the
Northern Ireland (Emergency Provisions) Act and was opposed to
prosecutions that would result in acquittals. He had assured Atkins that
enquiries ‘were being pursued urgently and energetically’ to try to
identify those who might be involved and to arrest and detain them for
questioning.

While politicians such as Atkins might have claimed ignorance of the
true nature of the UDA, no such excuse was available to Hermon. As chief
constable, he had full access to Special Branch intelligence and would
have been well aware of the widespread involvement of the UDA in
assassinations, bombings, extortion and intimidation.

In the month before the arms find, NIO official D. F. E. (Frances)
Elliot drafted a letter to a Mr McNamara of Liverpool in answer to his
letter requesting the proscription of the UDA, dated 25 March. Ms Elliot
explained that the secretary of state was not, at present, going to
proscribe the UDA. She wrote that the decision was based:

“on the difference between an organisation as such being engaged in
terrorist activities (as for example, the PIRA or the UFF, both of which
are proscribed) and individuals (who also happen to be members of an
organisation) committing crimes.”

This oft-repeated disingenuous and subtle distinction was based on two
false premises. First, the UFF was not a separate organisation but
merely a cover name for the UDA. Second, it assumes that ‘individuals’
who carried out acts of terror were acting alone and were not being
directed by leaders of the UDA.

Michael Canavan of the SDLP persisted in his efforts to have the UDA
proscribed. On 1 June he wrote again to the secretary of state with new
information to bolster his case, referring to seventeen members of the
UDA convicted of terrorist offences; an Ulster Television Counterpoint
programme detailing UDA gun-running from Scotland; the judicial
comments, not only of Justice Murray at the trial of the killer of
Alexander Reid, but also of Justice McDermott (3 April), Justice Rowland
(18 April) and Justice Doyle (24 March and 28 May); and armed attacks on
at least five persons, one fatal.

Having taken the decision not to proscribe the organisation, officials
struggled to decide whether or not to inform Canavan of this. In a
remarkably cavalier response to Canavan’s dogged and justifiable
concern, C. Davenport of the Law and Order Division of the NIO advised
against informing him, noting that ‘interest in the UDA has gone off the
boil’.