The Reverend Roy Magee was a gentleman and so was Church of Ireland Archbishop Robin Eames. Archbishop Eames agreed to meet us and we had the meeting in my wing canteen. He informed us about the possibility of a scheme of ‘phased release’ for prisoners. He said he believed there would be a sliding scale for different offences such as murder, attempted murder and possession. He looked at me and apologised, saying he didn’t think anything could be done for me. I answered that it didn’t matter, so long as my men got out. Archbishop Eames was wearing his official ring: a ruby set in a gold band. He was also wearing a gold cross around his neck. Again, Adair, unable to help himself, opened his big mouth. This time the Archbishop was out of range, but Adair’s words were embarrassing: ‘I thought I had some gear, but did you see the size of that fucking ring and the necklace? There must be a few quid in that religion racket.’ There isn’t an answer to this sort of comment. Johnny Adair was a lost cause.
Gary McMichael made several visits to the Maze to talk to prisoners during the ceasefire and Good Friday referendum, but Loyalist prisoners never rated him, especially Adair. They rubbished his attempts to follow in his father’s footsteps. In my eyes he could never be his father’s son. John McMichael was a focused military man and an astute and intelligent politician. Gary McMichael was never a volunteer or street fighter and he couldn’t grasp what motivates men like me because he could never be like me. He didn’t have it in him. Loyalist prisoners resented him.
On the other hand, they rated Ray Smallwoods. He was one of the chief political strategists of the UDP, the UDA/UFF’s political wing, and had done time for attempted murder. He was sentenced to fifteen years for the shooting of Bernadette McAliskey and her husband Michael at their home in Coalisland, County Tyrone. Ironically, an undercover unit of the British Army happened to be on hand and saved the couple’s life and arrested the UFF unit.
Smallwoods was released and threw himself into politics, taking up where John McMichael had left off. Smallwoods was shot dead by the IRA just weeks before the 1994 IRA ceasefire. His death left the UDP like a coop of headless chickens and it was up to Gary McMichael to lead the party, but he couldn’t deliver. McMichael Junior was good for occasional soundbites, but that was it. Once, he criticised Johnny Adair for going to Drumcree at the height of the Orange protests. I heard the call Adair made from the mobile phone he kept hidden in his cell. They were choice words. ‘I’ll kill that fucker Gary McMichael for interfering in my business.’ McMichael never raised the subject of Johnny Adair and Drumcree again.
During the campaign for a yes vote in the 1998 Good Friday referendum, there was a rally in the Ulster Hall, organised by the UDP. On the Monday before the Friday rally, a meeting was held in the prison gym. It was packed with prisoners and about forty outsiders. Key members of the UDP were present, including Gary McMichael and John White. There was a heated argument when one East Belfast prisoner, Harry, said he wanted to go to the rally and speak on behalf of all Loyalist prisoners. His request did not go down well with them.
My brigadier asked me to go to the rally. I had my first parole coming up and my father was unwell. I said my family came first, but my brigadier said that the UDA was split between the hardliners and the moderates and that, if I went to the rally in support of the principals of the Good Friday Agreement, I could unite the organisation. I spoke to John White. I told him about my parole and that I would be going to the rally out of respect for the UDA. I told Gary McMichael exactly the same thing and said that, if my going to the rally was going to cause problems, then he should let me know.
On the Friday afternoon I saw my father and was then taken to the Ulster Hall. The UDA had provided a man called George Legge to be my bodyguard for the evening. Inside I was greeted with thunderous applause. The press was present and the flash of cameras also caught my eye. The banners were eye-catching. There was one, painted with the words ‘Michael Stone Says Yes’ and a second one, draped over the balcony, which said, ‘Trust and Honour’. Sixteen hundred Loyalists rose to their feet as one, to acknowledge my presence. To get to the stage I walked along a small corridor and was confronted by a confused and speechless Gary McMichael. He was accompanied by a West Belfast UDA commander. I reminded McMichael of the conversation we had in the Maze that if he had a problem with me being at the rally he was to let me know. He couldn’t remember the conversation.
The stage was packed. John White was there, other UDP representatives and VIPs were there and there was a small band from the Shankill. I gave an open-hand salute to the crowd. The open hand meant I had nothing to hide. It was a peaceful gesture. I was formally welcomed on stage by Jackie McDonald, who shook my hand and showed me to my seat among the VIPs and officials, but I chose to sit at the back with the bandsmen.
John White addressed the crowd. He said Loyalists ‘like Michael Stone and Johnny Adair have made today possible’. The audience was also told that after thirty years of Republican violence to achieve a united Ireland, the IRA had lost the war. They heard that the IRA lost their war because Loyalists made it impossible for them to bomb Protestants into a united Ireland. The scales of conflict had tipped and the UFF had forced the IRA on the run.
After the rally there was a meeting in the Avenue One bar. I was briefed that the LVF were about to call their ceasefire on the stroke of midnight. From a small upstairs room I gave an interview to local radio station Cool FM, which was broadcast on the 11pm news. I reiterated the UDA/UFF’s commitment to the principles of the Good Friday Agreement. I also said that it was my understanding that the LVF, the only Loyalist paramilitary group not on ceasefire, was about to announced their commitment to the Peace Process. The LVF ceasefire was announced on the midnight news on Downtown Radio.
On the Monday, I was returned to the Maze. The Governor wanted to see me. He said that I was ‘all over the papers’ and informed me that the law had been changed during my brief absence. He said, ‘From this day, Mr Stone, prisoners on parole cannot attend events with more than twenty people present.’ I laughed at the Governor and asked him, did that mean the cinema, ice skating, ice hockey or the leisure centre? He never answered.
25
UNCHARTED WATERS
I WALKED FROM THE MAZE A FREE MAN ON 24 JULY 2000. I WAS FORTY-FIVE. I HAD SERVED JUST TWELVE YEARS, INCLUDING MY YEAR ON REMAND, OF MY THIRTY-YEAR SENTENCE. I expected to be a pensioner, an old man of sixty-four, before I could leave my cell in H7 for the last time. I was one of the last prisoners to leave the Maze, thanks to the Good Friday Agreement. The Early Release scheme was one of the concessions the fledgling Peace Process brought political prisoners like me, and the ‘phased release’ part of the scheme meant all political prisoners remaining after June 2000 would be automatically released. I was included in this bracket.
It was a monumental day for my family. The Sentence Review Commissioners had originally given me a date of 22 July and I had been preparing for that day for months but the authorities fudged the date and told me my actual release would be two days later. I lost a legal challenge aimed at securing my rightful release day. The High Court dismissed my application for a judicial review outright. I was the only man left on my wing and it was a long and lonely weekend. I had my release day fixed on my emotional horizon and I thought it would never arrive. So to occupy my time, I built the biggest bonfire the Maze has ever seen.
On Monday morning I walked into the reception area of the Maze for the final time. The authorities did the usual security checks. I was strip-searched and fingerprinted for the last time. They took a Polaroid showing exactly what I looked like on my release, and clipped it to my file. My release papers were read out to me and I was asked whether I understood everything contained in it. I nodded that I did. The Governor stressed that I was the property of the Secretary of State and that my licence could be revoked at any time until 2019. I signed the papers and the Governor added one final thing. He said that I was not eligible to apply for a firearm until two years after my release. I had s
een enough of guns. I wouldn’t be applying.
The Governor shook my hand and wished me well. Several of the screws I got to know on the wings rushed into the reception area to say their farewells. One had a Sureshot camera and insisted on taking a photograph, but I told him I didn’t ‘do’ photographs. He insisted and persisted and I eventually relented. Then suddenly there were fifteen uniforms squeezed all around me. I said my goodbyes to the Governor and the prison officers and walked, a grateful man, through the metal turnstile. Right up to the very last second I expected Jeremy Beadle to jump out and tell me it was an elaborate hoax. But it was no joke. I was going home.
The press had gathered at the main entrance to the prison. I knew they would be there and had prepared a short statement that a UDP spokesperson would read out to them. Contained in this was a reiteration that my war was over, that all deaths in war are regrettable and a request to live the rest of my life peacefully and quietly with my family and friends. There would be no triumphalism. It would be dignified and sensitive to the feelings of the families. It was my intention to go straight home to see my family after the formalities with the media were finished.
But the statement was never read. I was given unpleasant family news and was ushered away from the Maze. I was told my son Gary was on the run from the RUC, that he was wanted in connection with an attempted murder. There had been a street fight and Gary and his friend had laid into each other over a car they both owned. Gary’s pal had fallen awkwardly, hit his head on the kerb and ended up with a fractured skull. The incident happened two weeks before my release date but my family didn’t tell me because they didn’t want to spoil my big moment. The moment was destroyed. I didn’t want to hang around talking to journalists and mingling with well-wishers. I wanted to go straight home and find out about my son.
I greeted the press with a solemn face. There was no smile and there was no speech. No sooner had one Stone been released from prison than another was in trouble and on the run. I was taken in a people carrier to the city via South Belfast. En route we changed to a 4WD to take us into East Belfast and the Gael Lairn centre on the Newtownards Road. The convoy took me past a newly painted mural on Templemore Avenue. It was me but it didn’t look like me. I looked more like the cartoon character Super Mario Brother. Underneath were painted the words: ‘His Only Crime Was Loyalty’. It was an honour, because in Loyalism you have to be dead before gable ends and walls are dedicated to you.
As we joined the Newtownards Road from Templemore Avenue, the UDA stopped the traffic to let my convoy of cars pass through easily. Inside the Gael Lairn centre the small conference room was packed with journalists and camera crews. Although it was a strain, given the news I had just received, I did say that all deaths are regrettable, and I expressed my regret to the families of the men I killed and my regret that I’d had to fight a war.
There was a brief stop-over in the Avenue One bar. I went through the motions for the sake of all those who had made an effort for my benefit, and was then taken to the Tullycarnet estate, where my sisters had organised a party. Despite my wish for things to be low-key and for my family to be mindful of the security implications of my release, there was a massive hand-painted banner strung across the house saying, ‘Welcome Home Michael’. Balloons were tied to bushes and trees, and music was coming through speakers and blaring out all over the street. There were hundreds of people there, including some from the Braniel who had come out to wish me well and welcome me home.
After the celebrations I had to start readjusting all over again. I knew that life wasn’t going to be easy. I knew I would be more of a prisoner on the outside than I was inside the Maze. I had made mental preparations for that. Before my release I had organised several safe houses in the Dundonald area. People were very kind and opened their homes to me in those early days. From the bottom of my heart, I thank them all. To protect me, and by default to protect themselves, they had every conceivable security device attached to and installed in their homes. There was bullet-proof glass, steel doors, infrared sensors, cameras and even dogs. Although the dogs were there for my protection, I loved them as pets. The last time I had stroked a dog was the night before Milltown.
When prisoners are released they begin their new lives by signing on and claiming benefits. They are given a start-up grant of around one thousand pounds for their fresh start. Because I was living from safe house to safe house, I wasn’t able to sign on and I lived from hand to mouth in those early days. Political prisoners and paramilitaries don’t get a pension. There are no financial rewards for giving your life to paramilitary organisations.
My first real home was with Suzanne Cooper, my former fiancée. I’d met her when I was in prison, and she was a rock of kindness and support. Suzanne had her home modified with extra security so that we could have a normal life together. The doors were reinforced with plates of steel. We had infrared sensors, trip switches and bullet-proof glass. We had matching ‘his’ and ‘hers’ body armour. We had two brutes of Alsatians bought as guard dogs to protect our lives and our home.
I had been there just one week when the RUC informed me that I was on a dissident IRA hit list. The police announced themselves by parking a fleet of Land Rovers at the bottom of my drive. The dogs were going mad. The officers wouldn’t come to my door and I wouldn’t go to the Land Rovers, so I lifted the phone and rang Strand Road police station. They eventually came to the front door. One officer said, ‘Michael Stone, we have received reports that you are to be murdered this weekend. It has come from a reliable intelligence source who added that the killers know your exact address.’ I thanked them and they left. I didn’t leave the house for a month.
I worked hard at getting my life back to normal, but it took longer to adjust than I bargained for. It was small things, like readjusting to living with another person and sharing a bed. After twelve years in prison I was institutionalised, though I fought it.
Suzanne and I parted a few months later and I moved to a small flat on the Ballybeen estate. At nine in the evening, as I waited for a taxi to take me to a club, there was a knock on my door. It was an RUC car and in the back was Suzanne. She said she had been looking for me all day and warned me not to go out. The RUC officers confirmed that the INLA unit from Bawnmore wanted to shoot me in the car park of a well-known establishment. A taxi driver had seen me the week before and the information got back to the INLA. The RUC then said, ‘We have been to this, this and this address but eventually we found you.’
In November 2000, just four months after my release, the Labour MP Kevin McNamara invited me to address the British Irish Committee on Northern Ireland. It was an honour to be asked to represent my community in the Houses of Parliament. I felt humbled that I was invited to speak at a meeting within the historic walls of Westminster. I went there to speak in support of the Belfast Agreement. British politicians needed to be warned that Ulster’s path to peace was, and still is, strewn with difficulties. I wanted to stress that the Agreement was worth fighting for because there was no alternative except a return to the past. Kevin McNamara wasn’t able to attend. He got a better offer, an audience with the Pope.
I told the Committee that what I did I did in the name of my Britishness. I told them I did what I did because I am a British citizen. I also had a warning for the group. I told them working-class Protestants felt disenfranchised by the new political structures: the Assembly and the Executive. I assured them I was personally committed to the Peace Process because it was the only one we had and I would do everything I could within my own community to make it work.
Before addressing the Committee I had spoken to several politicians privately. I was saddened that some of these Conservative MPs shunned my visit, saying my early release was ‘a disgrace’ and it was ‘doubly disgraceful’ that I was allowed into the grounds of the Houses of Parliament. The Tories argued that a triple killer, who took life in a graveyard, had no place in politics and no place in democracy. My argument is that
we do have a place because we lived and breathed a war for thirty years.
I had prepared a short speech to deliver to the Committee and it contained the following words: ‘My war is over. I know it will cause great hurt and resentment to many people that I am free today. I want to make a contribution to the Peace Process. I want to do something constructive, not destructive for a change. I deeply regret the hurt I caused the families of the men I killed. I regret that I had to kill. I believed, at the time, it was necessary. There is nothing I can do to take away the pain I have inflicted. There is a lot of hurt out there and I am responsible. Much of that hurt comes from my actions as a paramilitary. I don’t see myself as a criminal. I committed crimes as an Ulsterman and a British citizen and that was regrettable but unavoidable. I committed horrendous acts of violence in the name of Ulster. I support the principles of the Good Friday Agreement but, as I have seen on the streets since my release, there is alienation within the Loyalist-Unionist community. We all need to work together and do everything we can to make this work.’
Committee members shook my hand and thanked me for my honesty. I was told I was very open about the crimes I committed and very honest about the appalling action I took in the name of Ulster. I told them I was speaking at the Committee so that British politicians understood where I, and many like me, were coming from. I told the Committee that I was not proud of my paramilitary past but I was proud of being British. I also said that I was as British as all the politicians gathered for this meeting.
After the meeting I was given a tour of both houses of Parliament. I had tea and scones in the Common Room. The Tory MP Anne Widdecombe shook my hand, but she had no idea who I was. I found the history of Westminster overwhelming. As I walked the ancient corridors I knew I belonged in Belfast. I am a homebird and that is where I belong. I decided to go straight back and do everything I could to make the Peace Process work. I had to sell it to my community and I believed I could. It wasn’t the perfect solution, but it was the only one we had.
None Shall Divide Us Page 27