Then came the other charges: murder, attempted murder and conspiracy to murder. I gave them every scrap of intelligence I had seen on my targets: Owen Carron and Martin McGuinness. I told the detectives exactly where these men lived, what cars they had in their drives, including the colour, make and registration number. I could tell them about the layout of Carron’s garden and the names of his two dogs. I watched their faces as a young officer tapped in the information. They were speechless. They just stood looking at the computer, bewildered. They wondered how a Loyalist with an address in East Belfast knew so much about Mid Ulster, Londonderry and South Tyrone. I know they were puzzled that a loner had so much intelligence at his fingertips. I didn’t betray my associates. I didn’t tell them about my ‘eyes and ears’, about my network of contacts all over Northern Ireland who had access to intelligence and sensitive information and that these people passed this information on to me.
I had one ‘official’ visit while lying in my hospital bed, but I don’t know who my English visitors were. It was after dark. The detectives had gone. The RUC were patrolling outside my ward. The door opened and five men entered the room. Two were plainclothes RUC men, probably Special Branch. The other three had English accents and were dressed in expensive suits. One said to the others, ‘So this is him’, and one of the plainclothes RUC men answered, ‘Yes, this is the man.’ The three Englishmen looked at me like I was a specimen in a museum, turned on their heels and left the ward. The RUC officer on the door nodded at them as they passed and closed the door after them. It was obvious they were military men, but I have no idea why they wanted to peer at me.
Questions on the death of Kevin McPolin and Dermot Hackett came thick and fast. When detectives put it to me that McPolin’s death had all the marks of my modus operandi on it, I just said, ‘He was a legitimate target.’ The RUC questioned and probed but they were puzzled. I imagined myself there and tried to recreate a credible version of events. One of the senior detectives said he didn’t believe me. I was grasping in the dark for something to make my version of events sound like the truth. But in the end the detectives were satisfied and the murder of Kevin McPolin was added to my charge sheet.
Dermot Hackett was a different story. I had no difficulty convincing them I was responsible for killing him. I had seen his intelligence file, knew the weapons selected for the operation and had done a dry run. I had done everything bar pulling the trigger. The only question mark hanging over my confession was the trajectory of the bullets that entered Hackett’s body. I told the detectives I pointed the gun out of the window, when in fact the gunman had stood up through the sunroof of the Opel Manta. The detectives didn’t pursue this discrepancy in any great detail and added Dermot Hackett’s name to my charge sheet.
The RUC had twenty-eight outstanding murders on their hands and wanted to close the book on them all.
On 16 March 1988, the same day as Milltown, another young Catholic died. He was called Kevin ‘Mungo’ Mulligan and had been in hospital for eight months after being blasted in the chest and stomach in a shotgun attack. He was working on the Beersbridge Road in a garage and was hit when he was bending down to change the wheel of a car. I wasn’t responsible for this operation but the detectives wanted a confession. They said that Mulligan’s death showed my MO: a shotgun at close quarters. I told them it was nothing to do with me. They got me to look at photographs showing his injuries in the mistaken belief that it would shock me into a confession. I asked them to confirm where the young lad was hit and they said the stomach and chest. I said it was an unusual place to aim, given that Mulligan was in a crouched position at a car wheel. I told them that if I had killed him I wouldn’t have shot him in the stomach. I would have shot him in the head. I also told them I deliberately kept my paramilitary activity away from East Belfast because I didn’t believe in ‘shitting on my own doorstep’. This was not what they wanted to hear. The senior detective from Grosvenor Road slammed his file shut, then left the ward.
I was also questioned about the death of Jack Kielty, the father of the comedian and television star Patrick Kielty. My teams of interrogators insisted I did it. They tried to link every shotgun killing to me, saying the choice of gun and the style of execution automatically made me the gunman. The UFF had intelligence on the County Down businessman, and I had seen his file, but I did not kill Jack Kielty. I understand his death, in January 1988, was a joint UDA and UVF operation. There were rumours that Jim Craig, the UDA’s chief extortionist, had a hand in his murder. Jack Kielty was to be a witness in a court case taken by Central Television. One of the station’s programmes, The Cook Report, was being sued by Craig.
The RUC also questioned me about the killing of Adrian Carroll, who was shot by the UVF in 1983. The incident gave rise to a long-running legal and political controversy. Four members of the Ulster Defence Regiment were convicted of his murder, even though they protested their innocence. As with Kevin McPolin, I had never heard of Adrian Carroll. The detectives would say, ‘We know you are the gunman’, and I would answer, ‘Aye, and I sank the fucking Titanic as well.’ They tried to force a confession by showing me graphic photographs of other unsolved murders committed over the years. They would push the gory pictures into my face and say, ‘Have a look at this, Stone, you done that. Does it not make you sick?’, and I would answer, ‘No, because I didn’t do it.’
The RUC didn’t force anything out of me. I wasn’t mistreated and I wasn’t beaten. I freely confessed to the four murders that I did do and they got closure on two outstanding deaths, one of which the cops knew for a fact I didn’t do. My interrogators thought they could trace other murders to me and that I was just going to confess, but they had misjudged me. The RUC had been given Hackett and McPolin. They had four other murders on my charge sheet. They had five counts of attempted murder, three counts of conspiracy to murder and six counts of wounding with intent. The RUC had been given enough.
I admit, having been a Loyalist volunteer for seventeen years of my adult life, that I was involved in other military operations. But that is between me and the big man upstairs when my time comes.
I was allowed just one visit from Leigh-Ann. She was very tearful and cried for most of it. She brought newspapers but I couldn’t read them. They were like string vests as every story relating to me, Milltown or the Gibraltar Three had been ripped out. I told Leigh-Ann I was sorry for putting her through this nightmare. She told me she was shocked to see me lying in a hospital bed because I had never been sick once during our marriage. She said she had been to the doctor and her family was very worried about her. She was on medication and was a ‘bag of nerves’. I said it would be best if she didn’t make any more visits. I told her it was for her own good that she didn’t come to see me for a few months. I said I didn’t want her to have to run a gauntlet of hate or endure Republican taunts. She sadly agreed.
I was formally charged on 22 March 1988 at the police office at Townhall Street. No charges were put to me at Musgrave Park Hospital. I was handcuffed and put in the back of a police Land Rover, which was right in the middle of a large, high-security convoy. The cops were panicking. They knew the Land Rover could be hit at any time.
The arresting officer preferred all the charges, including six counts of murder. He read the names of the three, Thomas McErlean, Kevin Brady and John Murray, who died at Milltown. I replied, ‘I alone carried out the military operation as a retaliatory strike against Provisional Sinn Fein and IRA for the slaughter of innocents at La Mon, Darkley and Enniskillen. I am a dedicated freelance Loyalist paramilitary.’
When the charges relating to Paddy Brady, Dermot Hackett and Kevin McPolin were read out I said, ‘I read their files, they were legitimate targets.’ The detective’s face fell. Until this very second I had not mentioned intelligence files.
Even though the UDA had let me down I still felt loyal to the association. I didn’t want to compromise the UDA, so I said I worked alone. I said I was a freelance operative even though two UFF briga
diers sanctioned the Milltown operation. I said I was a lone paramilitary because Milltown was a disaster and I refused to bring the UDA into disrepute and the organisation is bigger than one man, any man. I had a deal with the hierarchy. If I were killed on active service they would bury me after claiming me. If I were arrested on an operation they would claim me and I would do my time on the UDA wings. I wasn’t sure if the deal still stood. Up until this point the UDA leadership had reneged on their promise to me. After Milltown, Tucker Lyttle had forced the UDA’s hand and I was collectively disowned and politically isolated.
When the charges had been put to me in the police office I was taken to a holding cell and waited three hours to be taken to my remand hearing. The cell stank of stale urine from the drunks who had been kept overnight and was a jolt to my system after the sterility of my hospital ward. I had to stand. There was no seat and no bed. Two RUC officers stood guard. I noticed there was a thirty-step climb to the remand court and the injuries to my hip and legs meant I wasn’t able to walk very far, never mind climb a flight of stairs. Outside the cell was a bench on which two men, dressed in formal suits, were sitting watching proceedings.
The sergeant said, ‘Big day for you, Michael.’
‘I’ll never make those stairs.’
‘We’ll help you.’
It was a big day for me in more ways than one. I knew once the remand proceedings were finished I would be taken to Crumlin Road jail and would stay there until my trial. The trial was at least twelve months away. I was getting agitated. I knew once I was brought to the Crum I would have to fight for my life, but physically I was not in any shape to defend myself. I was still carrying the injuries sustained from the beating on the motorway. I could barely walk, let alone fight. The Crum is two-thirds Republican. The wings are mixed. I knew I was putting my head in the lion’s mouth. I was fearful for my personal security. I had committed a crime in the eyes of the Republican movement and they were going to make me pay. The Republicans knew they had me once my remand hearing ended.
The sergeant’s voice filled my cell: ‘We’ll help you’, and in a voice filled with anger and frustration I yelled, ‘I wish I had an AK. I’d soon be out of here. I’d cut you all to ribbons.’ At these words the two suits turned their heads to look at me. They stood up and walked away. I don’t know who they were.
My name was called, indicating that I was now officially summoned to my remand hearing in the tiny courtroom. I continued to hover at the bottom of the stairs because I couldn’t move. I knew I didn’t have the strength in my legs to climb thirty steps. I felt like my pelvis had locked and my legs were made of rubber. I told the sergeant that it would take ‘an army and maybe a crane’ to get me to the courtroom. He was a kind man and I regretted screaming at him that I would use an AK to shoot my way out of the place. Put your arms across your chest and stick your elbows out, he told me. He was a big man, and he and the constable carried me to the top of the stairs and put me down outside the door, allowing me the dignity of limping into court. The sergeant opened the door and said, ‘You walk in there to your remand hearing and you stand tall.’
I was pleading Not Guilty to all the charges put to me. I told my legal team that I wanted my day in court and by pleading Not Guilty was giving myself a trial in front of a judge. I intended to tell the court that Milltown was sanctioned at the highest level in the UDA. I intended embarrassing the Republican hierarchy, who lied when they said they gave chase in Milltown. And I intended damning the authorities who had planted a police unit on the motorway to watch the funeral.
The remand hearing was open to the public. Republicans had packed into the tiny gallery. The press was also present. I focused on a spot on the wall and kept my face expressionless. When the charges were read, I said, ‘Not guilty.’ The hearing ended and I was remanded in custody until a date was fixed for my trial at Belfast Crown Court. The same officers carried me back to the stinking cell while arrangements were made to take me to Crumlin Road. The cell was disgusting, a miserable little hellhole. I kept running Milltown over and over in my head. Every split second of the operation was freeze-framed in my mind and projected on to the dank walls like a movie. I could still see John Murray. He had a brave face. John Murray was a brave man. I also thought of my little daughter and I knew I would never see her grow up.
A male voice dragged me back from my thoughts. It was a young RUC officer, who passed a copy of a magazine through the bars and asked me to sign it. It was the RUC’s in-house publication Police Beat. Jack Hermon’s face was on the front. The officer wanted me to sign my name across his ‘bald head’. I refused and told him to piss off. He wouldn’t go away and chirped on and on that he wanted to prove he met me so he could show off in front of his mates. So I signed the magazine. I signed, ‘Michael Stone, 1988, No Surrender’, before pushing the magazine back through the bars.
Thirty minutes later I was taken from the cell and put in a Land Rover that would take me to my new home, the Crum. As I hobbled towards the vehicle, I heard a girl’s voice behind me saying, ‘No, I’m going to do it.’ She was young and was wearing the uniform of the RUC, but she planted a kiss on my cheek and said, ‘Good luck, Michael Stone, you are a true Loyalist.’
I was bemused. I thought it was a strange world, and as the Land Rover pulled away I couldn’t help but think about her words. The young policewoman was right. Where I was going I would need all the luck in the world.
17
PRISONER A385
CRUMLIN ROAD JAIL:A RAT-AND COCKROACH-INFESTED VICTORIAN DUMP. IT WAS NOT FIT TO HOUSE HUMAN BEINGS, BUT THEN TO THE AUTHORITIES WE WEREN’T HUMAN BEINGS. We were the lowest forms of life, no better than the cockroaches and rats that shared our cells.
I had been in prison before and knew the introductory procedures, which included the strip-search and the medical on arrival. Prisoners are always given a grubby towel measuring just twelve by twelve inches to wear after showering and before the search. I didn’t see the point of it. The towel barely covered my private parts, so I slung it over my shoulder and limped around naked. The prison doctor gave me a medical and put on his notes that there wasn’t a piece of white skin on my body, which was still recovering from the motorway beating. I wasn’t surprised to find out I was spending my first week in the prison’s hospital ward.
In that week I had just one visitor: my mother. With us throughout her visit was a prison officer, and when I asked him to leave he refused. He hovered at my shoulder listening to every word we spoke. My mother cried. She hugged me and whispered in my ear that she understood, she loved me and I would always be her son, no matter what happened. It would be a full year before I saw her again.
After a week I was released from the prison hospital fully expecting to go on the wings. The Governor came to see me. He was carrying a clipboard and on it was an order, signed by the Secretary of State that said I couldn’t enter the general prison population and would be held for an indefinite period on the Prisoner Segregation Unit. I was told that the Secretary of State would sign the order papers every twenty-four hours until a decision had been made to move me back into the general prison population. I asked him whether I was spending my remand on ‘the boards’ and he said yes. I limped, accompanied by four prison officers, past the noisy heart of the prison and then down below ground. I was destined for the bowels of Crumlin Road jail. ‘The boards’ is solitary confinement, and being on the boards means being locked up twenty-three hours a day in the PSU. Inmates who have broken prison rules or misbehaved by fighting one another or assaulting a prison officer are sent there as punishment. The internal system that decides how much time in the PSU a misbehaving prisoner should get is called ‘adjudication’.
The cells in the PSU were six-by-ten-foot units of hell. They had a tiny, narrow bed along one wall and along the other wall two bits of wood sticking out pretending to be a table and chair. It was dark and dingy, with no natural light except a small slit covered with Perspex which was so badly s
cratched and so dirty that it may as well have been boarded up. A plastic knife, fork, spoon, plate and mug sat on the table. There was a plastic bucket in the corner. The walls were brown and a naked light bulb hung from the ceiling. The maximum period of time a person can spend on the boards was six days, unless the prison Governor asks the Secretary of State for Rule 25, an extension order used under exceptional circumstances.
I was held on the boards for one whole year. I was the first prisoner in the history of Crumlin Road to do fifty-two weeks in a row in the PSU. Every twenty-four hours the Governor, flanked by two prison officers and one principal officer, would come to my cell and read these words out to me: ‘Michael Stone, the Secretary of State has ruled that for security reasons, and the security of the entire prison, you are to be kept in the PSU. For the next twenty-four hours this is where you will be housed.’ Within a week I knew by heart the words that renewed the order to keep me in the bowels of the Crum. After a week I told the Governor to ‘give my head peace, I know those words by heart’, but he had to stick to prison protocol. I was officially told that I was being kept in the PSU for my own safety. I wasn’t stupid. I knew I was on a Republican hit list. I knew prison walls couldn’t protect me from a Republican wanting to settle a score. The Governor believed that if I was let among the general prison population anything was possible.
Every twenty-four hours the Governor asked me if I wanted anything. I always said no. He asked if I wanted family visits. I said no. The ‘unlock’ of one hour each day was weather-dependent. If it rained, I didn’t get out. I found it hard being confined to a tiny cell and I missed human company. I hated having nobody to talk to. I sat within those four dingy walls and I began to think. I started to reflect, step back.
I thought about my family, and came to the conclusion that I was a selfish, arrogant bastard. I knew I was self-absorbed and put my UDA career before two wives and nine children (five born in wedlock, and four out of wedlock). I refused all their cards and letters. I wanted to be as far away as possible from the people I cared for and who continued to love me despite everything I had put them through, but I had let my mother and my entire family down. My baby daughter would grow up not knowing me. I would be a geriatric before I would be able to spend any quality time with her and by that stage she would be a grown woman with a life and family of her own. I thought about my boys. What sort of role model was I for my sons? I thought about my mother. Her health was not good. I thought about Tommy Herron and his words ‘It’s death or prison, kid’ bounced off the dingy walls and rang in my ears. The chickens had come home to roost. Everything Herron said, none of it was a lie.
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