None Shall Divide Us

by Michael Stone

  Laffan was quiet for a few days, then asked for a pen. He told the screws he wanted to write to his wife and child. The screws asked me to keep an eye on him because they had given up. I looked in on him and his mouth was covered in ink. He had eaten the pen after covering his entire body in childish drawings. I felt sorry for him. On the day of his trial, Laffan shouted into my cell, ‘So long, Rambo Stone.’ He went to court and got his four years. I never saw him again. A week later he was dead, hanged in his cell.

  I tell these stories because they prove what war and prison do to people. They pulp their brains. Haunted by their past, these men were reduced to shadows of human beings. I could have been any one of them, or all of them, but I made an effort to stay focused and in control.

  18

  PAT FINUCANE

  PAT FINUCANE WAS A PROMINENT AND SUCCESSFUL LAWYER. HE WAS ONE OF JUST A HANDFUL OF SOLICITORS WHO HAD BECOME PROFICIENT IN THE OPERATION OF CRIMINAL TRIALS IN NORTHERN IRELAND’S NON-JURY DIPLOCK COURTS. He had been involved in a number of high-profile cases, at one point defending IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands. At the time of his death he was involved in the inquests and court cases that surrounded the death of two County Armagh men who were shot dead by the RUC.

  Finucane lived in North Belfast with his wife and family. He was ambushed in his home one Sunday evening while he was eating with his wife and children. Two UFF volunteers sledgehammered down his front door and shot him with an automatic rifle and a 9mm Browning pistol. He was hit fourteen times in the head and body.

  He died on 12 February 1989, just three weeks before the start of my trial. Pat Finucane overheard a heated argument I was having with three detectives, one of them Special Branch, when I was on remand, and I believe overhearing those angry words may have cost him his life.

  Six weeks before my trial was due to start I had a visit from the police. Two of the officers who questioned me in Musgrave Park Hospital came to Crumlin Road to deliver my box of depositions. My legal team had been complaining for nine months about not having access to the evidence, which would be used during my court case.

  Legal and police visits were held in a special room that was divided in two down the middle, with each side divided into five cubicles. The cubicles were tiny, no bigger than five by eight, and were separated by thin plasterboard walls. There were three plastic chairs and a shelf that doubled as a table. You had to speak in whispers because other prisoners and other people’s lawyers could overhear conversations. Ten prison officers accompanied me, the prison was locked down and I was strip-searched before being allowed into the visit. As I walked the length of the room I noticed all the cubicles on the left-hand side of the tiny corridor were empty, except the last one. In the fifth cubicle were two of the investigating officers who questioned me in Musgrave Park Hospital and a third man – I didn’t recognise him – was in plainclothes. He was introduced as a detective sergeant in Special Branch.

  On the table was a large box containing my depositions, stacked on top of one another, two feet high. There was silence and I spoke first.

  ‘You took your time with those.’

  Silence. None of the RUC men spoke.

  ‘My solicitor has been waiting on these. I have been waiting on them. Why did it take so long to get them to me?’

  ‘Mr Stone, we have other charges we wish to make.’

  ‘Fuck your charges.’

  I was getting agitated. The Special Branch officer decided to contribute to the conversation. He mentioned my family and the danger I was exposing them to if I didn’t co-operate with this new round of enquiries. That was a red rag to a bull. I got to my feet and yelled at the top of my voice to the Special Branch detective, ‘You tell that fucker — that if he fucks with me, or my family, the shit will hit the fan.’ It is an open secret among Loyalists that the man I was referring was head of Special Branch at the time.

  The Special Branch detective addressed me directly.

  ‘What do you mean, Mr Stone?’

  I turned to the two detectives I recognised and spoke directly to them.

  ‘Tell him, the white Transit van. Tell him if he threatens my family I am going into the dock and I am going to say my mates fucked off and left me.’

  ‘What are you going to say about the white van, Michael?’

  ‘I’m going to say my mates fucked off on me. I have been rotting in solitary for almost a year. I have to nothing to lose. I will drop everyone in it.’

  The implication was that I knew the RUC men in the white van and they were my back-up unit on the day and were going to drive me to safety when the operation was over. I was angry. They had wound me up by talking about my family. I had done a deal with my interrogators and now they were going back on their word.

  The three detectives stood up to leave the cubicle. As they did I shouted a torrent of abuse at them. ‘Tell that fucker that if he messes with me, I will mess with him.’

  I watched as the three men began their slow walk through the unit and stopped outside the cubicle next door. I was still shouting at the top of my voice and punching the stud wall. I was filled with anger that they wanted to pin other things on me after I had wiped my slate clean.

  Then I noticed their attention was drawn to something or someone in one of the other cubicles. The Special Branch detective was tugging the coat of one of his colleagues. I followed their gaze and looked in. There was a man reclining in one of the plastic chairs and he had the side of his head pressed against the stud wall. His legs were extended straight in front of him and he looked relaxed. The man was wearing an expensive suit and a Crombie overcoat. I recognised him immediately as Pat Finucane, a high-profile lawyer. I looked straight at him and even asked him what the fuck he was looking at, but it didn’t faze him in the slightest. He didn’t answer me and he didn’t even look at me. I lifted the first paper on my bundle of depositions and read it out loud as the three officers left the unit. I was shocked. Pat Finucane had overheard every word.

  Days later, when I had calmed down, I had a think about what I shouted at the detectives in anger. Then I thought of Finucane, who had heard the RUC ask me about the white van and me reply that I’d go into the dock and say my mates fucked off on me. After Milltown, Sinn Fein had focused all their attention on the white Transit van and alleged I was working in collusion with the security forces. This claim was rubbish. The white van was as much a shock to me as it was to Sinn Fein when it appeared on the hard shoulder. I knew what was coming next: Finucane would make a statement. It would state that he knew, categorically, that Michael Stone, the Milltown killer, carried out the operation in collusion with the security forces.

  I braced myself for the fallout but it didn’t happen. Less than three weeks later Pat Finucane was dead. I heard on a late-night radio bulletin that there was a fatal shooting in North Belfast. The victim was a well-known solicitor and the UFF had claimed responsibility. Finucane was killed by three members of the West Belfast unit of the UFF. His wife was injured in the operation. A statement issued after his death by the UFF said it killed ‘Pat Finucane the Provisional IRA officer and not Pat Finucane the solicitor’. The double agent Brian Nelson personally targeted Finucane and provided the intelligence to the unit who carried out the killing. I was told by an associate that Nelson ‘pushed it and pushed it hard and it was done and dusted within fourteen days’. Members of Finucane’s family had strong Republican connections. His brother John was killed in a car crash in 1972. A second brother was extradited from the Irish Republic to the North. A third brother was the fiancé of Mairead Farrell, one of the IRA volunteers shot dead in Gibraltar. Pat Finucane was the first solicitor to be killed in the Troubles.

  Finucane was never a UFF or UDA target, and I know that for a fact. He wasn’t even a secondary target. No intelligence file existed on him, but a file did exist on his brother Frank, who was also a UFF target. I am told Pat Finucane wasn’t killed because he was a Catholic solicitor or because he defended Provos or because he
had family involved in the IRA. He was killed for ‘other reasons’. Finucane had heard my angry words with my RUC interrogators and the Special Branch detective. RUC and Special Branch knew he overheard the shouts about the white van. It was said in the heat of the moment, it was a bluff to protect my family and frighten the RUC from making further enquiries or adding further charges, but it cost Finucane his life. I have no doubt the Special Branch detective reported back to his superiors that Finucane overheard me scream, ‘I’ll get in the dock and tell the court that my mates fucked off and left me.’

  After Finucane’s death I decided I would not go into the witness box. I would plead Not Guilty, but I wouldn’t let my legal team defend me. I now knew what the authorities were capable off.

  Three weeks after this visit the two interrogators from Grosvenor Road came back. The Special Branch detective was not with them. Every month I was remanded in custody, and the same RUC officers were always around and would stop me on my way from the hearing. They asked me was I still pleading Not Guilty and then said, ‘Will you tell us about the white van? You know you can talk to us.’ I replied, ‘Behave yourselves. What about your bastard Sean O’Callaghan you sent in to take me out?’ They said they didn’t know what I was talking about.

  Later, eighteen months into my sentence, I was told by the Maze authorities that investigating officers from the Stevens Inquiry wanted to talk to me. I agreed to the visit but had nothing to say to them. When I got to the room where the meetings were being held I noticed that there were six officers, including two of my interrogators from Musgrave Park Hospital.

  ‘I thought this was about the Stevens Inquiry.’

  ‘It is. They want to interview you.’

  ‘What about?’

  ‘Collusion with the security forces.’

  ‘You are not Stevens officers. Why are you here?’

  ‘Will you accept a visit from the Stevens team?’

  I refused to answer. One officer continued to talk.

  ‘You’ve been sentenced but we need to go over a couple of things. Kevin McPolin, was that you?’

  ‘You tell me. How does this sound: “Dear Mr Stevens, there are few things I want to get off my chest?”’

  ‘Michael, he’s an Englishman. He doesn’t understand our situation here. He doesn’t understand how things work. We are all Loyalists. He doesn’t think like we do. Will you see Stevens?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘The white van?’

  ‘Fuck off.’

  ‘The Ruger, where did it come from?’

  ‘I have been done for that.’

  ‘Did you know the police officer it was stolen from?’

  ‘No, but I suppose you are going to tell me that the officer hung himself in his police station because he was caught stealing money for gun permits?’

  I left. They sat on. Throughout the whole conversation not a word was written down. I do not know if they were wired. When I looked behind me, two of the officers were scribbling furiously in their notebooks.

  Several months after that I got another visit. This time it was a request from the Samson Inquiry team. There were two plainclothes police officers and I had never seen them before. They shook my hand and introduced themselves and explained that Mr Samson wanted to meet me. ‘Mr Stevens also wanted to meet me and I refused his visit,’ I said. ‘Tell Mr Samson that I can’t help him with his inquiry.’

  ‘There is a lot of interest regarding your statement, “I read his file, he was a legitimate target.” Can you elaborate on that for us?’

  ‘No.’

  ‘Do we tell Mr Samson that Mr Stone refused a meeting?’

  ‘I have nothing to say to Mr Samson.’

  All files I read on targets were given to me by UFF intelligence officers and they in turn had their own contacts. I was never handed a file by a member of the security forces, although I do concede that the files were very professional both in presentation and content, especially the aerial photography. I am not aware of any Loyalist paramilitary group that had its own air corps.

  19

  SHOW TRIAL

  ONE MONTH BEFORE MY TRIAL I HAD A VISIT FROM MY LEGAL TEAM, WHO BROUGHT SOME DISTURBING NEWS. Justice Higgins, the judge assigned to my trial, refused to speak to them in chambers about the case. My solicitor said it was the first time in his legal career that this had happened and it was an unusual departure given that cases are discussed privately. He then dropped the bombshell. The authorities were thinking of giving me ‘natural life’, which, if convicted, meant I would die in prison. I hadn’t even stood in the dock, my depositions hadn’t arrived and my sentence was already under discussion.

  I told my legal team to go back and give Justice Higgins and the Crown Prosecution Service a personal message from me: ‘I will get into the witness box and I will talk about the white Transit van.’ The following day they came back and told me natural life had been ruled out and I would get the first stipulated sentence in Northern Ireland in eleven years. I told them that ‘thirty years is better than forty and twenty years is better than thirty’. Within a few hours my solicitor was back, telling me that if I was found guilty I would be sentenced to thirty years. I knew four weeks beforehand what the outcome of my trial would be. My trial would be academic. But the nonsense continued.

  Two weeks later I had another visit from my solicitor. He told me the CPS was going to use the television footage taken at Milltown as the backbone of their prosecution. I was shocked that the live pictures of me captured that day were going to be played before the court. I was asked whether I wanted to see it so that I would be mentally prepared for the images it would show, but I said no. The thought horrified me. I didn’t want to see the events of 16 March, the day I nearly died. I hadn’t seen the images the outside world must have seen a million times and I was not looking forward to watching myself in action at Milltown.

  The start of the trial was fixed for 3 March 1989. I would be tried in Court Number One of Belfast Crown Court. I knew it would be a media circus and all eyes would be on me. I knew the gallery would be packed with Republicans. I was relieved to discover that Loyalists had also turned up to offer their support.

  I was taken in a convoy to the city-centre court. I was placed in a holding cell with four prison officers guarding me. There was also a team of RUC men standing nearby. The holding cells are below the Crown Court. They were small rooms, separated by thin wooden partitions. In the room next to me were two young prisoners. It was just minutes before my trial started, and I can still remember what they said because it was so bizarre. All I kept thinking was, I’m not really about to stand trial, I’m in the middle of a Monty Python sketch. I can still hear the conversation.

  ‘Hey, mate, that fucker Stone is up today for attacking those innocent people at Milltown.’

  ‘I thought they were all IRA up at that funeral.’

  ‘No, mate, a few of them were Provo boys but most were innocent.’

  ‘Maybe he was after the big boys, the top men.’

  ‘What are you in for, mate?’

  ‘Stealing electrical goods.’

  ‘Hoods rule. See you on the wings, mate.’

  ‘Yeah, see you on the wings.’

  A prison officer appeared at my cell.

  ‘Michael Anthony Stone, Court Number One.’

  The two hoods shouted, ‘Fuck you, you Orange bastard.’

  I shouted back, ‘Tiocfaidh Ar La, you wee fuckers.’

  Only in Belfast would something like this happen.

  I walked into court, escorted by prison officers as guards, and was surprised to see lots of faces after a year in solitary confinement. There was a massive television at one end of the court, plus three others positioned so that the judge, the defence, the prosecution and the media could see the images that would be shown. I knew once the tape started playing I would have to face the things I had done and relive my own narrow escape from death.

  I had previously decided to plead Not Gui
lty and had made this decision because I wanted my day in court. I wanted to take the stand and ridicule the Republican movement. I wanted to mock Gerry Adams and Martin McGuinness for their cowardice at Milltown and for their wrong account about pursuing me through the frightened crowd. I wanted to acknowledge John Murray as a true Republican who gave his life for what he believed in and I also wanted to shame the authorities.

  But, following the meeting with my legal team just four weeks earlier and the death of Pat Finucane, I decided against it. I would still plead Not Guilty, but I wouldn’t be giving evidence. I told my legal team that I would not be going into the witness box and I would have nothing to say throughout the entire trial. There was enough hard evidence linking me to three murders. The authorities had enough to justify their thirty-year sentence. I told my legal team that I didn’t want them to question any of the charges or any of the evidence presented in court. They reluctantly agreed with my wishes.

  Court Number One was finally in session and my charge sheet was read out. It took ten minutes to complete.

  Murder – 6 counts

  Attempted Murder – 5 counts

  Conspiracy to Murder – 3 counts

  Wounding with intent – 6 counts

  Doing an act with intent to cause an explosion

  likely to endanger life

  Causing an explosion with intent – 2 counts

  Possession of firearms and ammunition with intent – 9 counts

  Possession of explosive substances with intent

  Possession of an explosive substance with intent – 2 counts

  Naturally, Republicans trooped forward in their droves to give evidence and the evidence was substantial. There were eyewitness accounts. There were reports from experts in the fields of forensics and medicine. There were damning press photographs and the dreaded television footage. There was Army surveillance footage and, finally, there were my statements. To the frustration of my legal team, my depositions had arrived only six weeks before my trial. The RUC had refused point-blank to hand them over any earlier. So to me, my trial was a joke. In my eyes, my trial made a mockery of the legal system. It was a show trial.