The Shankill Butchers

by Martin Dillon

  Marchant was shot within a short distance of premises used by a political grouping affiliated to the UVF. His day-to-day movements were erratic which suggested that on the day of his death the Provos received a phone call indicating his presence on the Shankill Road. The Provos when planning a killing of this nature have an assassination squad on standby in an area close to where their intended target is believed to be.

  The UVF enquiry did produce one piece of information which linked Murphy, Bingham and Marchant. Each of them had quarrelled at different times with James Pratt Craig, the UDA leader in West Belfast. The UVF Brigade Staff concluded that this was merely a tenuous link and insufficient to permit them to act against Craig who was a leading figure in a powerful organization. Craig was a stocky man in his early forties who led a flamboyant lifestyle evidenced by his choice of expensive clothes and jewellery and his retinue of admirers. He ran protection rackets on building sites in the west of the city and extorted money from other businesses such as shops, clubs and pubs. His police file was packed with details about his activities and the many suspicions about him, but the RUC found it impossible to persuade people to give evidence against him. He was frequently seen drinking in Loyalist clubs in the Shankill area, dispensing largesse from the profits of his criminal activities. He was not intelligent but was cunning, boastful and ruthless, and believed he could display his new-found wealth with impunity. He was an ex-boxer who used his physical talents to bad effect and at the outset of the present conflict was in prison for criminal offences. However, in prison he joined the UDA and became the self-styled commander of an increasing number of UDA offenders in the Maze Prison.

  David McKittrick, now Ireland Correspondent of the Independent, recalls being told by an IRA leader that Craig explained his method of maintaining discipline amongst UDA prisoners in these words: ‘I’ve got this big fucking hammer and I’ve told them that if anybody gives me trouble, I’ll break their fucking fingers.’

  Craig was present at the anti-sectarian assassination conference in the Maze which is referred to in the introduction to this book and it was Craig who, at the same conference, told his companion, Sammy Smyth, to keep his views to himself, views which eventually led to the Provos killing Smyth.

  Craig was willing to communicate with the Provisionals within the prison and established contacts which were put on a more formal basis when he was released. He formed a working relationship with the Provos when racketeering led to the paramilitaries carving out areas of the city for their exclusive use. This arrangement ensured that, while sectarian killings continued, they did not interfere with the working relations between the racketeers. It also guaranteed that Craig was never at the top of an IRA hit list.

  The RUC believe Craig was involved in several murders but there are only two which I know can be firmly attributed to him. The first was the shooting of an innocent man in a UDA club in the Shankill area. A UDA member entered the club and told Craig he had a pistol which was ‘jamming’. He handed the weapon to Craig who casually levelled it at shoulder height, his hand outstretched, and pulled the trigger. The gun fired and a bullet struck the head of a man playing pool, killing him instantly. Craig had the body removed from the premises and dumped in a nearby alleyway.

  The second murder was of a fellow member of the UDA, William ‘Bucky’ McCullough. McCullough discovered that Craig was taking large sums of money for his personal use from UDA funds acquired from the extortion rackets. Craig was worried about the accusation and decided that McCullough had to die. Craig sought a meeting with the INLA, the organization which murdered Airey Neave, and this was held in a bar in Belfast city centre. Craig told the INLA man present that McCullough was involved in sectarian murders and provided additional information which led to McCullough being shot at his home.

  Craig also faced a serious problem in 1982 when Lenny Murphy was released from prison. Murphy was not fully aware of the extent to which Craig was in control of racketeering in West Belfast with the result that within a short time Murphy was at loggerheads with Craig who issued threats to Murphy through intermediaries. The message to Murphy was a simple one: ‘Don’t encroach on my territory.’ Murphy, as we know, was not easily intimidated. Craig recognized this and maintained a tight form of security while Murphy was around.

  If Murphy had lived would he have acted against Craig, or was he intending to do so before he died? In 1987, five years after Murphy’s demise and following the murders of Bingham and Marchant, the UDA for its part felt obliged to examine Craig’s activities and lifestyle. His behaviour, particularly in relation to criminal pursuits such as extortion, was causing acute embarrassment to the UDA leadership and, in particular, its political spokesman, John McMichael.

  I met McMichael on several occasions in 1987 and he voiced suspicions that Craig was out of control and was believed to be providing the IRA with information on Loyalist paramilitaries. McMichael was an impressive figure who was developing a political strategy for the UDA and the Protestant working class and his efforts were praised by leading political figures in the Nationalist community. He believed he needed to change the image of the UDA and to present a political alternative to chaos. He perceived Craig’s activities as anathema to a policy which required the UDA to possess a clean image if its political thesis of shared-responsibility Government was to achieve cross-community consensus.

  McMichael demanded that the UDA’s ruling body, the Inner Council, force Craig to stop racketeering and interrogate him in relation to the deaths of McCullough and the three members of the UVF. McMichael’s concerns were further heightened by the broadcast of an Independent Television documentary presented by the investigative journalist, Roger Cooke. The programme exposed Craig as a leading criminal and the public reaction to the broadcast, leading to demands for the UDA to be proscribed, galvanized McMichael into action and he set up his own enquiry into Craig and those who surrounded him. McMichael discovered that Craig was spending money on lavish continental holidays at least twice a year and was generally living a ‘champagne lifestyle’.

  The investigation was in its infancy when a bomb exploded under McMichael’s car at his home, killing him. The Provisional IRA admitted responsibility for the murder but there was little doubt within the UDA and UVF that, once again, the Provisionals were kept informed about their target’s movements on the day of his death. The evidence, circumstantial though it was, pointed to Craig as the man with the motive.

  Younger elements in the UDA who supported John McMichael decided after his death in December 1987 that they would not allow the matter to rest and they continued the enquiry on a furtive basis. They discovered, by means which I am not in a position to reveal, that the RUC’s anti-racketeering squad, C13, videotaped a meeting between Craig and a member of the IRA’s Northern Command.

  On the evening of 15 October 1988 Craig was lured to the Castle Inn in East Belfast for a meeting with other members of the UDA. He travelled to the bar in the belief that he was secure and that the death of McMichael was part of the past. As he sat drinking, two men in overalls, wearing ski masks and armed with automatic weapons, burst into the premises and sprayed the public bar reserving aimed shots for Craig who died instantly.

  The UDA’s military wing, the Ulster Freedom Fighters, admitted responsibility for killing Craig and apologized for killing an elderly man who was in the bar at the time of the shooting. They said they knew Craig had provided the information which led to the Provos killing McMichael. Privately, they confirmed a belief that Craig also acted in concert with the IRA and the INLA in the killings of Murphy, Bingham, Marchant and McCullough.

  Maybe Craig did set up Murphy; the evidence is circumstantial, the type of evidence which enabled Murphy to survive for so long. While writing this book I was told that on the night Murphy died, a leading member of the UDA was sitting in a house in the nationalist district of West Belfast with members of the INLA waiting for news about Murphy’s fate. The description of the man fits with Craig�
�s. It begs the question of whether his contact, as in the case of McCullough’s death, always remained the INLA from that moment onwards and whether it was that organization which provided the Provisionals with the information they required. He may also have channelled information through them to the Provisionals in respect of the McMichael killing because it came at a time when the INLA was busy sorting out internal rifts caused by a feud. The answer to it all lies with two men who are dead.

  Conclusion

  Many people are referred to in this book by letters of the alphabet. This is necessary for legal reasons but I also feel that it is not my role to seek to identify people who have not been brought to justice; that is a task for the authorities.

  I never saw it as my responsibility to go beyond the existing evidence, or to indulge in fantasy or speculation, or to jeopardize the lives of others, irrespective of their political allegiance or the evidence implicating them in crimes.

  One of the primary lessons I learned from writing this book is that the public expects the police to bring all terrorists to justice yet they do not take into account the rules governing police behaviour and the laws of evidence. There are those who conveniently blame the RUC for not proceeding against known offenders but I hope I have shown that in some instances the RUC recommends a course of action which lawyers representing the Director of Public Prosecutions then rule to be legally unwise or untenable. When the public calls for action against terrorists there is a general assumption that the means are available to effect prosecutions. That is not so. Terrorists are schooled in evasion and they learn anti-interrogation techniques. When police manage to acquire accomplice evidence, there is always the risk that this kind of evidence is not the best means of proceeding with a prosecution. Northern Ireland has experienced the ‘supergrass’ system but it was rejected by many Nationalists and Unionists, who demand nonetheless that the police resolve the terrorist problem using judicial means. Despite police successes, which C Division certainly had, it is my contention that the present system is inadequate.

  The story of Lenny Murphy and his gang supports my thesis that no matter how determined the police may be the system is easily exploited by terrorists on both sides of the community. I do not know the solution to this problem and I do not feel it is my responsibility to provide one for Northern Ireland society, but I believe that Murphy and his gang exemplified the problem facing the law enforcers.

  The policemen, both uniformed and CID personnel, whom I interviewed, impressed me as dedicated men doing a difficult job and applying themselves to their responsibilities better than many other professionals I have met. They made mistakes, some serious, but they exploited their opportunities when it proved essential. Throughout the writing of this book I was aware that I possessed the advantage of hindsight, and I constantly sought to test my findings against the overwhelming problems associated with policing in Northern Ireland. Some of the lessons I learned from this exercise have been accepted by the RUC. I had access throughout my research to confidential files and notebooks and to police personnel, and at no time did the RUC seek to hinder my work. There was never any question of the manuscript being vetted by the RUC and, at the time of publication it has not been viewed by the police force.

  On many occasions I asked myself why I decided to write this book. Perhaps the genesis lay in my co-writing Political Murder in Northern Ireland which was published in 1973 and dealt with the nature of sectarian murder and mass murder in my society. That book revealed for the first time the hidden depths of depravity which existed and the grisly dimension to the tribal conflict between the two communities. Thereafter I always believed there was a work to be written which would explain in greater detail the precise nature of mass murder and the personalities drawn to it. The impetus for pursuing that course of action may well have been my feelings when I was shown post-mortem photographs of Stephen McCann in 1979. During the years that followed, I wrote about other matters but my thoughts constantly returned to the murder of McCann and subsequently the Butcher killings. I had a desire to discover why it all happened. Who could possibly commit such crimes and what was it in my own society that engendered such brutality? I hope this book, if it has not provided all of the answers, will at least have created the basis for debate about the nature of prejudice.

  One of the episodes in the book which contrasted starkly with the brutality was the Christian love and sorrow expressed between the Cochrane and Donegan families. This occurred on a larger scale after the bombing at Enniskillen too, and yet the killing goes on. Nonetheless, the Cochrane and Donegan murders illustrate one salient dimension to the situation: terrorists are impervious to expressions of morality even when such expressions are part of a public disavowal of violence. I began the book by stating that prejudice can lead to ridicule or extermination, and unfortunately the events in this book prove that where the paramilitaries are concerned it is more likely to be the latter.

  There is a question which many readers will ask: how long will the Butchers spend in prison? The answer is that I do not know. A number of terrorists who were found guilty of murder and who were not given stipulated sentences by the courts have been released in recent times. The decision about the release of the Butchers remains with the executive arm of the Government. Life imprisonment, as we know it, is an indeterminate sentence, in that the length of it is not determined by the Courts. Training school orders and the old borstal training schools are similarly indeterminate. In the case of an indeterminate sentence, decisions about release on ‘licence’ are made by the executive (in the case of Northern Ireland by the Secretary of State) and not by the judiciary.

  In some countries, especially the USA, there are partially indeterminate sentences where the Court specifies a maximum and minimum amount of time to be served, leaving the specific release date to the executive to decide, which in practical terms means the recommendation of the Prison Governor. The argument for this practice is that it provides an incentive for good behaviour in prison. With the exception of ‘life’, training schools and the old borstals, the British system has not favoured indeterminate sentences; they are regarded as an unfortunate attack on the independence of the judiciary. Current trends, even where juvenile offenders are concerned, favour fixed and determinate lengths of custody (e.g. youth custody in Britain and parallel recommendations in the Black Report on Juvenile Justice in Northern Ireland). Murder is the one crime where the punishment has always breached the independence of the judiciary. In the days of hanging, the executive (the Home Secretary in Great Britain) could always reprieve. Similarly, the executive decides on the length of a life sentence, even though the normal practice is for the Home Secretary/Secretary of State to accept the advice of the Life Sentence Review Committee which includes representation from the judiciary and, where possible, the sentencing judge. So-called stipulated life sentences where the judge has stipulated a minimum ‘number of years, or in the case of Moore and Bates, ‘natural life, meaning life’, will be borne in mind by the executive when they are considering whether Moore and Bates will be released, but they are not legally binding.

  Indeterminate sentences do not attract remission. Other sentences in Northern Ireland, and this applies to several members of the Butcher gang, attract fifty per cent remission. This means that if a prisoner has not committed a disciplinary offence (which could be punished by an ‘Order of Forfeiture of Remission’), he must be released when he has served half his determinate sentence. This does not apply to ‘lifers’.

  Earlier I mentioned that Bates was denied privileges because of his behaviour and, for the benefit of the reader, I shall explain the procedure. Disciplinary offences in prison are listed in the Prison Rules. Minor offences, as specified in the rules, are dealt with by the Governor, who can caution, restrict privileges for short periods, order ‘cellular confinement’ (i.e. in a punishment block) for a short period, or order forfeiture of remission subject to a low maximum. Serious offences by persistent offenders are
referred by the Government to the Secretary of State who will, in most instances, delegate his authority to the prison board of visitors. This is what happened with Bates. The board of visitors has the same powers as the Governor but its awards are greater in length (e.g. for any one offence the board can order fifty-six days of ‘cellular confinement’, restriction of privileges until release, even for a ‘lifer’, or loss of remission for 180 days). Board of visitors adjudications are subject to appeal to the Secretary of State or judicial review in the High Court; legal assistance (in certain cases) can entitle a prisoner to be legally represented at a sitting of the board.

  Because ‘lifers’ are not entitled to remission, the board cannot award forfeiture of remission in their case. It tends to rely on the use of ‘cellular confinement’ and substantial doses of loss of privilege, as it did with Bates. It does not mean that ‘lifers’ such as Bates and Moore have less to lose, as Bates pointed out when he was brought before the board. On the other hand, an adjudication by the board is noted on the prisoner’s record and could possibly influence the Life Sentence Review Committee’s decision about recommending a release date. It can be argued that the uncertainty about a date for release and the attendant anxiety that that creates provides a strong incentive for an offender not to offend in prison. A ‘lifer’ who has not been released can be recalled to prison to continue his sentence; he does not need to commit another offence to be recalled.