Britain's Secret Terror Force Panorama

This programme contains some strong language and scenes which some

viewers may find upsetting from the start. This is the story of the

secret British Army unit set up to deal with enemies of the state on

the streets of the United Kingdom. So what was the mission as you

understood it? To draw out the IRA and to minimise their activities.

Minimise their activities. In what way? If they needed shooting, they

would be shot. Now, after 40 years of silence, members of this

undercover unit speaks candidly about what they did for Queen and

Country. We were not there to act like an army unit. We were there to

act like a terror group. This is a 9mm SMG Sterling, a little bit

beyond the normal SMG because it is fitted with a silencer. We picked up

shells which would went right down the street for another 20 yards, it

is a Sterling automatic. We have investigated the unit and discovered

evidence that this branch of the British state sometimes behaved like

that IRA and shot unarmed civilians. He thought he was going to die. And

I told him, no. Tonight, we tracked down one soldier accused of firing

on innocent citizens. Hello. Mr Williams. John Ware is my name. 40

years on, the victims and their relatives still want answers. Oh,

yes, we want the truth. We don't want to stop, to get to the truth.

People like us had to make decisions and a horrendous pressure. And make

the right decision. That is why I am here today and they are not.

In January 1972, British paratroopers shot 26 unarmed

civilians during a protest in Londonderry. 14 people died in what

became known as Bloody Sunday. What happened next is obscure. The army

say their men were fired on... Getting to the truth took nearly 40

years and an enquiry costing nearly ?200 million. Some of those soldiers

are now being investigated for murder and attempted murder. What

happened on Bloody Sunday was both unjustified and unjustifiable.

Today, case files of the conflict's 3260 dead are being reviewed as part

of the peace process. Our investigation has discovered another

group of soldiers who now stand accused of shooting unarmed

civilians in 1972. These soldiers were undercover and what they did

has been airbrushed from the official record. But some have now

emerged from the shadows. I was told it was a plainclothes small unit

operating mainly in Belfast and it was called the MRF. Which stands

for? It stand for Military Reaction Force. Seven former members of the

MRF have spoken to us about the unit did. Three agreed to go in front of

the cameras on condition that we disguised their identities. I

travelled from Liverpool and ended up in Belfast on a very dark

Knight, waiting on the harbour there, waiting for them to pick me

up, unarmed and eventually ended up in Holywood. The barracks? Palace

barracks. Inside the barracks was a big iron compound and it looks like

a builder's storage yard. Anyway, we pulled up at the main gate of the

compound and the gates just opened. We couldn't take anything, was even

photographs, no ID cards, no letters with addresses on, nothing. Anything

tying us to the military was totally out. We never got a uniform, very

few people knew what rank anybody was. I knew the boss was a captain.

These are the only known photographs of the MRF compound tucked away

inside a British Army base where ordinary soldiers were forbidden

entry. This top-secret unit had around 40

men, hand-picked from across the British Army. These were selected

men who have had experience, who were well trained, knew their

weapons, reliability and all the rest of the things which makes a

good soldier and put into teams and sent across. We were told we

officially don't exist on paper. The unit doesn't exist on paper. And if

you are caught, you will be killed. And if you are caught and killed,

the Government would probably put out a story that you were just a

soldier in plainclothes that was caught by accident. The unit carried

out round-the-clock patrols of West Belfast, heartland of the IRA

unmarked cars. The cover didn't always work. When I had my first

operation there were three of us in this really clapped-out Avenger. I

was the back-seat driver. We saw a car that was on the wanted list and

all of a sudden we turned around and then there were the power behinds.

-- they were up our behinds. We were carrying the personal weapon, a

Browning. 9mm. All of a sudden they opened up with ArmaLites. All of the

excitement going to the interviews, all of a sudden I am now in the

firing line, in the back-seat of this bloody car that was absolutely

clapped-out, petrified. This is the end before I even start. The car was

riddled with bullets and not one of us were hit.

MRF soldiers say they sometimes acted as bait, goading the IRA to

come out and fight. The soldiers wanted to take the war to the enemy.

This is a 9mm SMG, a Sterling, but this is a little bit beyond the

normal SMG because it is fitted with a silencer. Why the silencer? Well,

it is quiet. We were on special operations, soap, you know, we had

to be silent. To kill silently? Yes, as simple as that.

The military action Force was operating in what in 1972 was one of

the world's most dangerous places. In the space of 16 minutes there

were 13 blasts and sent people screaming from one place of safety

to another, none of them knowing where the next explosion might come

from. That year there were over 10,000 shootings. Nearly 500 died,

5000 injured. There was evil in the air just about everywhere. The

shooting of soldiers and police was not an everyday occurrence but

certainly a week occurrence. Looking back now it was chaotic and

horrendous. The IRA planted nearly 1800 bombs. An average of five a

day. Take away the religious aspect and some of these enemies were just

people who had got hold of weapons and they wanted to shoot somebody.

They were pure gangsters because somebody had given them a gun. A

soldier was shot on open ground after an earlier attack on an army

post nearby. Belfast was on the edge of anarchy. The politicians turned

to the Army to restore order. To the MRF went the task of

infiltrating IRA strongholds to see more while not being seen. British

soldiers trying to pass themselves off as local. So you needed a

variety of different guises. Yes. There was the trolley to pull, road

sweeping. Belfast City Council dustbins. We would use those on

covert operations. For what purpose? To stand around in the street. To

pose as adjustment. Yes, you could observe a house or people. I spent

quite a long as a meths drinker. Just lining -- lying in the gutters

in the streets. You would have a machine gun in a bin. You wouldn't

have rubbish in the bin. You would have the machine gun in the bin. I

had spare magazines strapped to my leg and I carried a PPK on the back

of my belt, a Browning under my left and my radio on my right hand side.

We were quite armed. You never attracted any suspicion? No. It

takes a lot of courage and it is a cold courage. It is not the courage

of hot blood, which soldiers in a firefight in conventional terms will

find the adrenaline rounds and gives them that extra. Jackson had served

in Belfast as the young paratrooper and eventually became head of the

British Army. He says he was barely aware of the MRF's activities, but

he does admire the courage they would have needed. And you know if

you are discovered a pretty gruesome fate may well await you. Torture

followed by murder. However, surveillance was just one part of

the MRF's mission, according to the soldiers we spoke to. We had two

basic arms. One was a surveillance, information, intelligence gathering

organisation and the other side was hard-hitting counterterrorist unit.

Tell me about the hard-hitting side. The hard-hitting side, we went out

and shot the terrorists. Like they'd uniformed comrades, MRF soldiers

were given stop on sight mugshots of wanted IRA members. They say they

would sometimes do more than just stop them. If you had a player who

was well-known who carried out quite a lot of assassinations, then he had

to be taken out. Taken out -- meaning? Taken out. Killed? Yes.

These were people # These were players, known shooters. Shot on

sight if you saw them? They were known in the organisation. We were

hunting down hard-core baby killers. Terrorists. People that would kill

you without even thinking about it. Yellow bobbing killers themselves,

they had no mercy for anybody. They would kill each other for opening

their mouth. With over 10,000 shootings in 1972 it is simply not

possible to say how many the MRF were involved in.

NEWS ARCHIVE: The killings have all the hallmarks

of sectarian murders. The men were Catholics and had left the pub where

one was a barman. MRF operational records have been destroyed and the

soldiers we have interviewed have avoided incriminating themselves or

their comrades. What is clear though is that in 1972 some plainclothes

soldiers did think it acceptable to shoot unarmed people.

In April that year, brothers John and Gerry Conway were on their way

to a fruit stall they ran in Belfast city centre. As usual I was

delivering the newspapers, which I did every day. The Conway Brothers,

Gary and that, the fruit then, that is how I knew Jerry, the fruit man.

He just waved over and the next thing these two cars appeared out of

nowhere, just appeared. A car pulled up alongside. A man

wound down the back window, like that. Run! He ran towards the Falls

Road. He turned back towards Ballymurphy. The next thing, these

people jumped out and shot him. Bullet lodged there in me. Gerry had

been running down the Whiterock, and our car was there, so he had come

over to the car and jumped on top of it squealing, please don't shoot me,

I have a wife and four wee children. I think at that stage he didn't

realise that he was shot, you know. It's the first time I'd seen blood

so thick. I know you cut yourself, you get blood. But I'd never seen -

I'm sorry... Who did you think had shot you? I didn't know who it was.

Plain-clothes soldiers had shot a couple of unarmed men mistaking them

for two of the IRA's most deadly snipers. Witnesses heard the

soldiers say they'd got Tommy "Toddler" Tolan and Jim Bryson. I

says, "That's not Bryson, that's not Bryson. That's Gerry, he's a frui -

that's wee Gerry the fruit man." By the time uniformed soldiers arrived,

John Conway had vanished. His brother Gerry was badly wounded and

taken to hospital by the Army where they still insisted he was IRA man

Jim Bryson. I got on to the corridor I could hear my brother shouting.

And this soldier kept insisting and said to my brother, "Tell me you're

locking Bryson." This soldier would keep repeating he was Bryson. And I

think if my brother said he was Bryson, they would have locking shot

him, and that's my point of view. Even today, the Ministry of Defence

refuse to say whether soldiers in this shooting were members of the

MRF. And the MRF soldiers we've interviewed wouldn't comment on

specific operations either. We were there in a position to go after the

IRA and kill them when we found them. Whether they were armed or

not? Occasionally, yes. It was shootings like that of the two

unarmed Conway brothers that sparked rumours of an undercover Army unit

engaged in assassinations. The Government gave this denial to

Parliament. In no circumstances are soldiers employed to assassinate

people or in any way which would involve deliberately going outside

the law. Patrols work under normal military discipline and in

accordance with the Yellow Card. The Yellow Card set out the rules under

which soldiers were allowed to open fire. Troops were ordered not to

shoot unless their lives, or the lives of others, were in immediate

danger. The orders are if you can see a gunman, a man with a weapon,

then you may shoot him. A man with a weapon. The use of force must be

reasonable in the circumstances, what the Yellow Card set out to do

was to give some codification to that word "reasonable". It was a

guide for soldiers to say if you want to stay within the law, follow

this? Precisely. You knew the rules of the Yellow Card? Yes, inside out.

They didn't apply to the MRF? No. I just want to be clear about where

the red line was as it were? I think it's a fuzzy red line. It would

depend on the situation, how it developed. Whereas the uniform

people they would be rigidly bound by it even down to the fact they had

to carry the card or face court martial or at least get charged.

There was some discretion allowed in your case? In the MRF's case? There

would be, yes. If I've got a weapon, but I wasn't aiming the weapon at

you, I was a legitimate target? If you had a weapon? But I wasn't

aiming at you? No, you are supposed to be arrested. I know, but you

didn't. No. You would do what? Shoot you. At the time, the Army's leading

expert on counter-terrorism was this man, Brigadier Frank Kitson. A

textbook he wrote became the Army's manual on counter-insurgency. In

order to put an insurgency campaign down one must use a mix of measures,

not just military measures. And it is sometimes necessary to do

unpleasant things, which lose certain amount of allegiance for a

moment in order to produce your overall result. Kitson was also

commander in Belfast when the MRF was established. He had done much of

his soldiering in the dying days of empire - fighting in the British

colonies of Kenya and Malaya. Kitson departed Northern Ireland in April

1972. Some of those he left behind had been schooled in the aggressive

tactics of small colonial wars - some of which were illegal under

British law. We'd seen Malaya, the fighting in Malaya, Cyprus, and

things didn't always go by the book. In 1972, Tony Le Tissier was a Major

in the Royal Military Police. He had been posted to Belfast to deal with

a backlog of legal complaints against the Army. For the

professional soldier, no, it was difficult to accept that this was

the United Kingdom. It was a fighting situation for which you had

been trained sort of thing and you were going to use the same methods

here. There were elements in the Army that had imported a colonial

approach to Northern Ireland? Virtually, the whole lot had

imported this, it wasn't just elements. It was a strong theme

within the, the armed forces, that was the experience that they were

bringing to Northern Ireland, where it was not applicable. Well, I mean,

you could just about do anything you wanted. Northern Ireland was firmly

split along sectarian lines. Both Republican and Loyalist gunmen would

drive into each other's areas and fire at unsuspecting civilians -

these became known as drive-by shootings. Work began this morning

on putting up permanent barricades to block side streets in part of

Ballymacarret, the strongly Protestant district alongside the

shipyard. Both Protestants and Catholics set up barricades to

protect their communities. Both had lost faith in the British state's

ability to protect them. Youths and men, masked and uniformed, armed

with modern weapons patrol openly. They control completely entry and

departure. The IRA would sometimes stage events like this for the

cameras. In fact, barricades were often amateurish, with unarmed

locals just "doing their bit" to protect their communities. But

that's not how some MRF soldiers saw barricades. Barricades were illegal.

And generally, a barricade in really bad area, there was almost someone

always armed on that barricade. You may not see the weapon, but it's

almost certain that somebody's going to be armed. We used to just plod

along, do a quick assess of the situation, and then move in and take

a few targets out and move along and let the uniform sort the rest out.

When you say "take a few targets out", you mean individuals on the

barricades? Yeah, and they were fully armed, displaying weapons.

Another MRF soldier told us whether or not they could see weapons on a

barricade, they'd sometimes, as he put it, give them a blast! We've

investigated two incidents where witnesses say this happened with

devastating consequences. The first was just before midnight. Aiden

McAloon and Eugene Devlin were in a taxi taking them home from a disco.

I remember saying at the time, "There's a car behind us" and

somebody said, "Oh it wasn't much heed paid." We didn't pay much

attention to it. We were tired and on our way home. This is the first

time these men have told their story. Taxi turned around, dropped

us off, we walked up Slievegallion Drive, there was a barricade further

on up. Which was sparsely manned, five or six people, maybe. At that

moment, an MRF patrol car came cruising by. GUNFIRE I thought it

was all over. I thought it was the end. They were meaning to kill or

maim someone that night and they were trying their damnedest to do

that. Within hours of the shooting, the soldiers had made routine

witness statements to the Royal Military Police - and we've

unearthed those statements. They don't match what thele civilians

have told us. As we approached the junction a car began to reverse on

to the Andersontown Road. In the headlights of the reversing car, I

saw a man at the junction. He was armed with a firearm which was aimed

towards us. Did you see a rifle at all? No rifle. Did you have a rifle?

No. Do you remember seeing a man with a rifle? Definitely not. Did

you have a rifle? No. I heard a shot fired which could have been aimed at

us or the reversing car. I then aimed at the man with the rifle and

fired eight rounds from my SMG. Later that night, both victims say

they were forensically tested by the police to see if they had handled

firearms. The results were negative. They were out to do something that

night. There was no-one had weapons at that barricade. After opening

fire, the MRF car returned to the base. However, it was part of a

two-car patrol, and the second one continued to circulate. Within

minutes, five more men had been shot. GUNFIRE A man came to my door

and told me that a man had been shot. I recognised him as Pat

McVeigh, one of the parishionerers from my district. I knelt down

beside him and gave him the last rites. Was he conscious? No, he was

dead. Patrick McVeigh's family say he had been on his way home from the

pub and had stopped to chat to some friends dismantling a makeshift

barricade. I arrived home late and there was people standing in the

hall, and I couldn't understand what was happening and the door opened

and there was a neighbour, and when I walked in she just pulled me and

said, "Your daddy's dead, he was shot" and obviously you're in

denial, shaking your head, "No, no." At that stage, my mummy had been

sedated by the doctor and, ah, that's how I found out. What was

your dad like? Um, a good person, um, very loyal, hard-working, good

to his children, um, just a nice person. I was horrified when I heard

the man had been killed and I couldn't believe it. I just thinking

to myself how lucky I had been to be alive. Patrick McVeigh and several

other people were at this corner of Riverdale Park, a Ford Cortina swept

up and a machine-gunner inside sprayed the group with at least 20

bullets. The IRA propaganda machine was quick to exploit the shooting.

Gerry O'Hare was then the IRA's Belfast spokesman. Were any of the

men that you saw known to you to be involved in the IRA? No, absolutely

not. There were people who, at night-time, would have come out and

manned the barricades in their own areas and they had to be local

people because they would have known who was coming in and coming out.

You couldn't put people who didn't live in the area on there. We've

learned the identity of the commander of the MRF car who opened

fire with his machine-gun on Patrick McVeigh. Sergeant Clive Williams of

the Royal Military Police - known as Taff. This is a rare picture of Taff

Williams. Taken when he was in the MRF it's a grainy official

photograph which shows him dressed in civvies. I would say he was

fearless. Was he a compassionate man? With us, yes. Not with the

enemy. He had a good feeling for it, did Taff Williams. Four hours after

the shooting, Sergeant Williams gave his version of events in a statement

to a fellow Sergeant in the Royal Military Police. One of the men in

the group of four raised his weapon and fired three rounds at the

vehicle. The wounded men and their clothes were swabbed to see if there

was any evidence they had fired weapons. The forensic lab could find

none. Tests in 1972 were not as reliable as they are today. However,

police at the time was satisfied that none of the men had been armed.

The army tried to cover up their involvement in this shooting. They

called it a crime which was motiveless. Implying it was

sectarian. The assumption was it was a group of loyalists that had done

the shooting and that was a dangerous assumption because that

increased the tension between the two communities. It was six weeks

before Mike Patricia McVeigh learned her father had been killed by

undercover soldiers and then only by chance, from a detective. Added

route reacts? Astonished, astounded, angry. -- how did we react? The

forces who were supposed to be protecting us had actually killed my

father and injured four the men -- four other men. It didn't seem

right. When I went home that night to go to bed and I took off my

trousers, my knees were covered in his blood. I felt it dreadful,

washing the blood of that man from my knees.

One of the MRF soldiers we have spoken to were involved that night

-- norm of the soldiers. But one did explain why those on a barricade

should not have been given the benefit of the doubt.

We were finding our targets and we were shooting at them. We shot, we

found our targets and we eliminated them or neutralising them. We didn't

go around town, blasting, shooting all over the place like you see on

the TV. We were looking for our targets, finding them and taking

them down. We may not have seen a weapon but more than likely there

would have been weapons there is a vigilante patrol. It is possible

they could have been shot at even if the weather hadn't -- the weapon

hadn't been seen. On occasions the MRF would make an assumption that

someone had a weapon even if you couldn't see one? Occasionally. And

they would get shot? Occasionally. Some people would say that was

murder. In fact, I think most people would say it was murder. It is

possible. I wouldn't say that. But if you haven't seen a weapon and you

haven't evidence there is a weapon there is an assumption you can't

keep -- kill people on that basis, can you? You are not supposed to but

we were in a terrorist conflict and people in that area, it all depends

on where they are and what they are doing at the time and as far as we

were concerned, as far as I was concerned and a few other people in

the unit were concerned, people caught in a specific situation, a

specific area, were part and parcel of the terrorist organisation.

Six weeks later Sergeant Taff Williams once once again on patrol,

one that would eventually land him in court. This is what local

witnesses say happened. That once again innocent and unarmed civilians

were shot. A lovely sunny day, around about

lunchtime. I was just sitting, the door open. This Cortina drew up. A

guy sitting in the back putter submachine gun out of the window. He

opened fire. The bullet came through the door and hit in the chest, that

is what happened on a sunny afternoon. I didn't really hear any

shooting. I sort of smelt it. Then I got this lightness, I thought I was

shot in the head, then I just collapsed, that was me.

Eileen Shaw saw the whole incident from her kitchen window. The card

game down on the wrong side of the road. The back man produced a gun of

some sort, fired indiscriminately at these men. Sergeant Williams had

fired several bursts from a machine gun, hitting four men. You got a

bullet in the chest, just one question not Just one, it is enough.

Has it caused you much difficulty since? Yes. Pain. I have to go to

hospital to get pain injections. Painkillers. Everyday? Every day.

Even today, 40 years on? Even today, 40 years. Taff Williams says he only

fired on the man because they had opened up on him. He said a bullet

had smashed his rear windscreen. We got to the hospital, we were swamped

by the police for forensics. There was no traces of nothing. None of

you were involved? Not one. At first the army once again covered up their

involvement. Later that day they said plainclothes soldiers had been

shot at and returned fire. Detectives from the Royal Ulster

Constabulary were suspicious. I do remember the shooting on the Glen

Road. I do remember rumours going around that it was some funny army

unit roaming about West Belfast and other parts doing strange

shootings. We didn't find out they were called the MRF. When detectives

inspected Sergeant Williams' car, they suspected he'd smashed the rear

window to make it look as if he had come under fire. Williams was

eventually sent for trial at this now derelict Belfast courthouse,

charged on three counts of attempted murder. However, we can reveal that

the jury got only a partial picture. I was given the job of covering the

Williams trial. Is not in here? As reporters, we had never seen any

undercover people being hauled into court and charged and prosecuted. It

didn't happen. Within the Ministry of Defence, alarm bells rang at the

prospect of this secret unit being unmasked. Declassified files show

just how determined MoD were to protect the MRF. There can be no

useful purpose in admitting the admittance -- existence of any such

organisation. There seems to be considerable advantage in

maintaining as much confusion as possible. Sergeant Williams' victims

sat in the public gallery to see and hear his testimony. He was the

double of Omar Sharif. Being so swarthy. Williams was put-in my

charge to take to court. I had to hand him over to the police there at

the actual trial its self. Williams' evidence was that he was

responding to fire that had hit is moving vehicle. He was asked how he

could possibly have returned fire at the men who were now behind his car

and receding rapidly into the distance. So he used the end of the

pew to demonstrate this. He sat there the gun on the floor in front

of him and picked it up and whipped it around like this in the firing

position. It was done in a matter of a split second, you know. That

wasn't the only bit of courtroom drama that -- there had also been an

extraordinary revelation. Williams had opened fire not with a standard

Army issue weapon but with a gun commonly used by the IRA, Thompson

submachine gun. We didn't know until then that this organisation was

using an -- that this organisation was using IRA weapons. If you are

using a Thompson submachine gun, the forensics come along later, taking

bullet holes out of the car, a wall or body, they will say that man shot

with that machine gun had been an IRA killing. When challenged over

the Tommy gun, Williams gave an explanation for why he had had the

weapon which he had never mentioned in his police interviews. He told

the jury he had been on a firing range that morning, demonstrating

the characteristics of the IRA's favourite weapon. Williams he

claimed he happened to have a Thompson submachine gun in the

back-seat, which is comical, ludicrous. You just don't happen to

have a Thompson under the back-seat of the car unless you are going to

use it for some purpose and not very nice purpose. One piece of evidence

the jury never heard was that the police suspected cover-up over the

Thompson. Because Williams had lied to them. At first he told detectives

he had fired a standard Army issue gun. When confronted with evidence

of Thompson bullet casings, he changed his story. Williams also

told the police this was the first and only time he had used the gun,

but was that true? We found an officer from another regiment who

told the military police in 1972 that he knew Williams sometimes went

on patrol with the Thompson. Other former MRF soldiers independently

told us the same story. Is it fair to say that it was Williams' weapon

of choice? Yes. Because? Because he liked it. Because? It was powerful.

It had knock-down power. It was a weapon that was associated to the

terror groups. It was part of the disguise, which was perfect. If I

had had access and permission, I would probably have used it as well.

They were playing at being bandits, weren't they? They were meant to be

IRA outlaws, that is what they were pretending to be, I presume. That is

why they were in plainclothes and operating in plain vehicles and they

had Thompson submachine guns. To what end? What was the military

objective? No idea, no idea. After a brief trial where several key

witnesses were not called to give evidence in person, the jury had to

decide if they believe Williams in the face of witnesses whose accounts

contradicted his. The evidence produced proof there were no guns,

no bullet cases, that the windscreen was knocked out from the inside,

there was a Thompson submachine gun and the evidence against him, he got

cleared. How did you feel about that? Sickened. Williams was

acquitted of attempted murder by a majority verdict. He was

subsequently promoted, leaving the Army with the rank of captain and

the military medal for bravery. Today, Williams lives on the other

side of the world, so we went to find him to see if 40 years on he

was prepared to answer questions about the people he had shot with

the Thompson submachine gun. This is where we think Clive Williams

lives. It has been quite difficult him down, but we called the house we

are about to visit. His wife answered and said there was no such

person living there, but we think he does live there. Anyway, we will

soon find out. Hi, Mr Williams? Yes. Sorry to

bother you, John Ware is my name. I am making a programme for the BBC.

Not interested, go away. We have some questions to put you. We have

some questions to put to you. And they are serious allegations about

the number of people that you are alleged to have shot. A lot of

people will say that your silence speaks for itself.

One of the questions Williams would not discuss was how he came to have

a Thompson submachine gun in the first place. Something else the jury

wasn't told was that the Tommy gun used by Williams wasn't even owned

by the army. In fact it belonged to this man. Hamish McGregor,

29-year-old captain serving in Northern Ireland to Parra. He had

previously seen active service in Aden, and winning the military Cross

for gallantry. We had many casualties coming in and the

soldiers behaved magnificently. In May 1972, McGregor joins the MRF and

with him came his privately owned Thompson, which was kept in the MRF

armoury. He officially became the unit's Commander 12 hours after

Williams used the weapon to shoot four people. We wrote to McGregor,

who retired as a Brigadier, to ask had he authorised Williams to take

his Thompson on patrol? After a month, we heard nothing, so we paid

him a visit. Mr Ware, I was going to the Post Office to post you a

letter. I see. So I don't want to be interviewed. Thank you. McGregor's

letter insisted that the only reason that the MRF had a Thompson was for

training. However, our evidence seems compelling, that at least one

of his men used it for more sinister purposes. By July 1972, the pressure

was on for the MRF to get results. In Belfast this afternoon, as the

streets were thronged with weekend shoppers, bombs exploded one another

the other... The IRA had spectacularly breached the security

cordon around Belfast city centre. In just 65 minutes, 19 bombs were

exploded, killing nine and horribly maiming many others. Bloody Friday,

is one of the worst days I can ever remember. It was a war zone. Report

on this the heaviest days bombing since the Troubles began in Ulster.

That has never gone from the back of my head. From that then, we were

under a hell of a lot of pressure. We had to get results because people

from above were screaming murder, to prevent all this happening. Results

meaning what? Well, you know, to curb the IRA presence coming into

Belfast. Officially, the MRF didn't exist. However, by autumn 1972,

rumours about a trigger-happy undercover Army unit were rife. That

September, another section of the MRF was involved in an incident

which would make the unit a liability. It involved two young

Catholic friends - Daniel Rooney and Brendan Brennan. The thing I

remember is leaving the girlfriend's house, as I was turning into me own

street I seen Daniel and met up and we started to talk about different

things. We were just standing at the corner, and we were just standing

having a conversation, the three of us. As we were standing talking, we

noticed the cars coming down St James' Road with the, the lights

full blast. They more or less glanced at us, and we looked at them

and... Just suspicion. -- suspicious. Deirdre and I come down

St James' Road, we were on the Falls Road and we were just chatting. And

there only seemed to be a matter of minutes when a fella came out of one

of the houses across the street and shouted to us, "Get off the corner

because there's strange cars in the district." It was something about

the car and the way it was driving and we just both of us then, just

turned and ran. The car went by and we were talking about it. And

that's, that's when the shooting started. GUNFIRE It just turned and

came towards us and shot. I can remember thinking, "I'm gonna be

killed here." He told me that he was shot and he

thought he was going to die. And I told him no, he'd be alright. A

bullet had torn through an artery. Daniel Rooney was just 18. I was

actually in me own house when I was told that he was dead. And do you

remember how you reacted? Yeah, I cried me eyes out. What was he like?

Cheeky chap by, you know, girls all loved him and very pleasant coming

going. -- cheeky chappie. Very happy-go-lucky, just out to have a

good time and a good laugh. He would have been a kidder, you know, he

would have had a joke with you and that, you know. The next day, the

Army admitted plaipb clothed soldiers had been -- plain-clothed

soldiers had been involved. 100 local women came out in protest. I

run down and lifted one of them young lads, oh God, blood was just

oozing out of them. One was shot in the back, right there in the whole

back, the other one was shot right in the stomach. The Army's version

of what happened is that a patrol of two cars with soldiers in civilian

uniforms was coming up street when five shots were fired at them. The

Army claimed that Daniel Rooney was a known IRA gunman. There is no

credible evidence for this. The IRA have never claimed him as a member,

and on this Republican memorial a few hundred yards from where he

died, Daniel Rooney is commemorated as a civilian. There's a pattern

here. This is the third shooting in a matter of months where MRF have

been involved, they say they've seen gunmen and weapons, the wounded and

the dead are tested, swabbed, on each and every occasion there is no

positive test of being near the weapons. How do you explain that? I

don't. What do you think the explanation, what do you think the

explanation might be? Is it possible that the police that tested them

didn't really test them? A lot of strange things happened in Ireland

at that time. The Army didn't trust the police. The police didn't trust

the Army. We didn't trust anybody. Nor in 1972 was there much trust in

the ability of the Army to investigate itself. Fatal Army

shootings were usually left to the Royal Military Police to

investigate. The enquiries sometimes amounted to little more than a cosy

chat. We would have a cup of coffee, we would discuss what happened and

then we would hand our reports over. Did the Royal Military Police

basically used to rewrite your reports? Erm, I think so. It is

possible. They made some adjustments. I would imagine it was

possible for people to oncoct stories under those circumstances. A

section that had been involved in an action, or half a section had been

involved in an action, sort of, you know, let's get this story together,

boys. That would be possible. I'm not saying it happened. It would be

possible. 3,260 people died in the 30-year conflict. Today, former

detectives are reviewing all those deaths. They belong to the

Historical Enquiries Team set up to assist the peace process. For many

families, the HET is their last chance to find out who killed their

relatives and why. You are still asking questions 40 years on? Oh

yes, we want the truth. We don't want to stop. Some people would say

you can't turn the clock back, you have to get on with your life? We

have. But it's still there. By late 1972, the Army top brass

were winding up the MRF. It appears that the Prime Minister, Edward

Heath, had been informed why. At Heath's request, a top secret note

reminded the military that whatever undercover unit replaced the MRF...

Special care should be taken to operate within the law. There have

been several occasions where you have acknowledged what the police

would describe as "criminal behaviour". You would accept that?

They would probably describe it as criminal behaviour, yeah. How would

you describe it? Fighting terrorists. In an unconventional way

and saving innocent people's lives, which we did. We asked the MRF's

officer commanding about the claims made by his men. Hamish McGregor

insisted to us that he ran a pretty tight ship and that the MRF was

never tasked to hunt down IRA leaders and shoot them. That would

have been against the law, he said, his unit had always abided by the

Yellow Card rules. I am extremely disappointed that a very few have

sensationalised a routine job and invented stish fictitious incidents

to give the impression that the MRT was anything other than a

properly-controlled and accountable unit. Whatever orders Captain

McGregor gave, it seems they weren't enough to stop some of his soldiers

opening fire on unarmed men. I'm not saying that anybody stood up and

said you have to do this, it was a prototype counter-terrorist unit and

we had to make up the procedures as we went along - and we did. Was it

an understanding that you should open fire? On these top players,

whether they were armed or unarmed? Or was it a specific order? We had

to use our own initiative. That is why I was selected for this

operation, to use my own initiative. The MRT was answerable to 39 Brigade

under the command of Brigadier Alexander Boswell. The MRF was wound

down after an MoD review concluded there was no provision for detailed

command and control. So we asked Brigadier Alexander Boswell if that

meant lethal MRF operations were not properly supervised. He declined to

comment. Asked about the allegations that MRF soldiers shot unarmed men,

the Ministry of Defence say they have referred this to the police to

investigate. Your job was to hunt down the enemy? And to kill them,

yes. That's what was done. Were they specifically sent out to... If you

are talking about assassination squads, certainly not. We were there

to do a job. To eliminate an enemy that was ruthless, dedicated to

their cause. I totally reject the death squad. But, you know, put

yourself in my situation. Yeah, we are on our homeland, we have a dirty

war, a war that was out of control. We knew who the operators were. We

knew who the shooters were. So what are you going to do about it, John?

I'm asking you the question now. What are you going to do about it?

Are you going to allow these people to carry on, killing innocent

people? Planting bombs? Killing ordinary civilians? People in this

country were killed. So how would you define it? I think you have

answered the question. OK. The IRA surrendered its weapons largely

because undercover soldiers and policemen crippled its ability to

fight. The MRF was the prototype of this undercover war and the soldiers

who have appeared on camera have done