Death on the Border Spotlight


Death on the Border

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This is a story that begins with a double murder. The victims were

:00:08.:00:15.

officers Harry Breen and Bob Buchanan. The highest ranking

:00:16.:00:20.

members of the RUC killed by the IRA and all with help from within the

:00:21.:00:26.

Garda. That's the shattering conclusion of the Smithwick

:00:27.:00:33.

Tribunal. An inquiry into collusion between the Irish police and the

:00:34.:00:36.

IRA. The findings were really staggering. They were shocking.

:00:37.:00:41.

Smithwick points to evidence of collusion in the murder of a High

:00:42.:00:45.

Court judge, Lord Justice Gibson. If there is an inquiry in the Gibson

:00:46.:00:49.

case and it comes to the same conclusion then the authorities in

:00:50.:00:52.

Dublin are going to have to face the fact that they have systemic problem

:00:53.:00:58.

not just individual cases. Years of Unionist suspicion abouts the Guards

:00:59.:01:03.

have been fuelled by a series of scandals. Exposing a culture of

:01:04.:01:08.

cover-up going back decades. It is all done with the sole intention of

:01:09.:01:12.

protecting the reputation of the force of the it is just the way they

:01:13.:01:15.

operate. Of course, the one organisation we can be sure knows

:01:16.:01:20.

the extent of collusion is the IRA and tonight we ask - is this the man

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who knows the truth? It is six months since the smit wick

:01:24.:01:47.

Report was published after an eight year investigation. It found that

:01:48.:01:54.

there was Garda-IRA in the 1989 murders of RUC members Harry Breen

:01:55.:01:59.

and Bob Buchanan. But it could not identify the officer or officers

:02:00.:02:03.

involved. The findings received a mixed reaction from the Guards. The

:02:04.:02:09.

commissioner rejected a key conclusion which suggested the force

:02:10.:02:14.

had a culture of hiding the truth. The police force that's described is

:02:15.:02:20.

not the police force that I lead and Garda Siochana at all times seeks to

:02:21.:02:32.

establish the truth. Dud But since then, attention has

:02:33.:02:40.

shifted to a series of IRA murders. Jean and Beatty Doak had suspicion

:02:41.:02:45.

since the day their daughter was murdered. As soon as the Smithwick

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Inquiry was finished I thought the same thing could have happened

:02:51.:02:55.

Tracy. Constable Tracy Doak was killed by

:02:56.:03:01.

the IRA in 1985, she was 21. That's her there. Yeah. Tracy followed her

:03:02.:03:10.

brother and father into the RUC. I don't think she thought she was

:03:11.:03:13.

brave. I think she just thought she was doing a job. She might have been

:03:14.:03:17.

scared from time to time, but she never talked much about it. Tracy

:03:18.:03:28.

had been part of an RUC pa tral taking over from the Garda Siochana

:03:29.:03:41.

to escort a Brink's-Mat van. A bomb was detonated. The plast killed

:03:42.:03:51.

three of Tracy's colleagues. News of her death reached her father in

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North Antrim hours later. We had a thorn hedge up the lane and I was

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cutting the hedge and I noticed the police car coming up the lane. The

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Chief Superintendent got out of the car. I knew then that something had

:04:10.:04:14.

happened and I said, "You're coming to tell me that Tracy has been

:04:15.:04:18.

killed." And the superintendent said there is no easy way of telling you.

:04:19.:04:30.

She was getting married and wanted to transfer out of Newry and she

:04:31.:04:34.

phoned me the morning she was killed and I could see that I could get her

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into Antrim Traffic Branch. And that was the last conversation we had

:04:42.:04:49.

with her. I could have got her out of Newry. I'm sure I could. There is

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not a day passes that I don't think about it. Less than two years after

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the murders, Mr Doak left the RUC, disillusioned with the handling of

:05:08.:05:11.

the case. He wondered how the IRA pinpointed the movements of the RUC

:05:12.:05:17.

officers. Here we are on the border between north and south. It is about

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200 yards up that road where Tracy Doak and her colleagues were killed,

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but the question is how did the IRA know the RUC were going to be here?

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Tonight, Spotlight can reveal details of a historical inquiry team

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reports into the Doak case never before made public. It says IRA

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surveillance could have predicted where this RUC patrol would be, but

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not only did the IRA seem to know the exact route the officers would

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take, witness evidence in the report indicates that they also knew the

:05:52.:05:55.

day the patrol would be on the road. This new information has

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strengthened the Doak's belief that a Gardai mole may have been

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involved. I just didn't believe it at the time, but as time has went

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on, I think there must have been. There is a lot of questions to be

:06:11.:06:15.

asked about that. Which I have no answer for. This is the old Belfast

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to Dublin road. So much of what happened here seems to belong to the

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past. So many murders shrouded in mystery. But that is something that

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has begun to change. Just two years after Tracy Doak and

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her colleagues died and on the same stretch of road, Lord Justice Gibson

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and Lady Gibson were killed. Again, it raised the question of Gardai

:06:59.:07:05.

leaks. The couple were killed after they left their Gardai escort. The

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judge was the most senior member of the judiciary to be killed by the

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IRA during the troubles. The Gibson case and the issue of ga

:07:16.:07:27.

Gardai collusion became part of the talks. Demands were met with counter

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demands from Ulster Unionist leader, David Trimble. It was clear to us

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that the Prime Minister was going to grant the requests of republican

:07:39.:07:41.

movement that some inyrries that they want -- inquiries they wanted

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to see would take place. We said we have got to balance the book and we

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looked around and Breen and Buchanan was an obvious case and the Gibson

:07:53.:07:56.

case because of the circumstances there as well.

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As a result of the deal at Western Park, retired Canadian judge, Peter

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Cory was appointed to investigate cases of collusion. The Gibson case

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was the only one not recommended for a full public inquiry. In reaching

:08:17.:08:22.

his decision, Judge Cory re-examined the evidence. His report retraced

:08:23.:08:26.

the final journey of Lord and Lady Gibson. They had taken a ferry to

:08:27.:08:30.

Dublin after a holiday in England. The report noted the trip had been

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booked in their own names. It was concluded the travel arrangements

:08:36.:08:40.

were widely known. The IRA could have learned of Judge Gibson's plans

:08:41.:08:51.

without a Gardai leak. At the time of the murders, the

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Garda dismissed claims of collusion. Judge Cory discovered at a later

:08:59.:09:05.

stage, the Garda did obtain intelligence that one their officers

:09:06.:09:15.

helped kill the Gibsons. He said the intelligence was supplied over ten

:09:16.:09:19.

years after the murders and came from a source whose reliability he

:09:20.:09:27.

questioned. But we now know the Cory Report was wrong because Smithwick

:09:28.:09:31.

discovered a mistake. Intelligence wasn't gathered over a decade after

:09:32.:09:36.

the murders, but just three years later. And importantly, Smithwick

:09:37.:09:42.

found the source of the information was very reliable. This was after he

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spoke to the handler of the source himself. Lord Trimble is calling for

:09:47.:09:54.

the Irish Government to review Cory's decision. It is quite clear

:09:55.:09:58.

now that a mistake was made and that mistake should be put right. It is

:09:59.:10:04.

not the figurement of unionist imagination. There is clear evidence

:10:05.:10:08.

that points towards collusion again. Do you think there should be an

:10:09.:10:13.

inquiry into the Gibson case? Ye They should have initially, but

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especially now when we've got the Smithwick report there and what's

:10:17.:10:22.

contained within that, there is an overwhelming case. There is an

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overriding reason for doing this and that's the Garda commissioner and

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other officers reacted poorly to the Smithwick case. They were reluctant

:10:33.:10:35.

to accept the conclusion that there had been collusion and if we only

:10:36.:10:41.

have Breen and Buchanan they could go around saying, "It was an

:10:42.:10:46.

isolated case." If there is an inquiry in the Gibson case and it

:10:47.:10:50.

comes to the same conclusion the authorities in Dublin are going to

:10:51.:10:54.

have to face the fact that they have a systemic problem, not just

:10:55.:11:02.

individual cases. there was a real worry that IRA terrorist might

:11:03.:11:04.

attempted to stop this establishment general... Rosemary Dixon, seen here

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at parents funeral, has never commented publicly on the murders.

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Many years it was thought the family did not want an enquiry. In a

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statement to Spotlight, breaking a 27 year silence, Rosemary has called

:11:23.:11:25.

for the case to be reopened. She said had never accepted the Corrie

:11:26.:11:30.

report and said he had mishandled the crucial evidence. She also added

:11:31.:11:37.

that mistakes made by Judge Cory denied their family a public enquiry

:11:38.:11:41.

and then no pressure was brought on those who were responsible for the

:11:42.:11:46.

death of her parents. The British and Irish governments told us they

:11:47.:11:51.

had no plans to reopen the case. Judge Cory and his team said the

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original report must speak for itself. The Smethwick inquiry heard

:11:58.:12:02.

even more damning information about the Gibson case. An Assistant Chief

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Constable from Northern Ireland to the enquiry that the PSNI had

:12:06.:12:11.

reliable intelligence to stay that a rogue Garda colluded. John McBurney

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sap but -- sat through all but one day of the hearings. Had Judge Cory

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know in this recent intelligence, I have no doubts that he would have

:12:28.:12:33.

recommended an enquiry, a full-scale enquiry into the awful murder of the

:12:34.:12:41.

Gibsons. John McBurney believes that the evidence in the Smethwick

:12:42.:12:45.

inquiry, in conjunction with other evidence, adds to previous concerns

:12:46.:12:51.

about pollution, and not just in the Gibson and Tracey Doak case. If you

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look closely at the border incidents, you begin to have very

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troublesome thoughts about a series of other border incidents, where

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information seem to have filtered out to paramilitaries. The murder of

:13:15.:13:26.

the Hammer family is one such case. In 1988 the IRA stepped off a huge

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bomb on the border. Their target was another High Court judge who had

:13:30.:13:36.

flown into Dublin and was met by her Garda escort. The IRA admitted they

:13:37.:13:41.

were targeting the judge later and they knew his travel plans, but they

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made a mistake in identifying his car. Instead, they killed Robin

:13:47.:13:53.

Hammer, his wife Maureen and their six-year-old son, David. In the

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space of four years, 11 people had been killed in remarkably similar

:13:59.:14:03.

circumstances. Time and again, the IRA carried out a series of attacks

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in this area and with each murder concerns and rumours group that they

:14:09.:14:11.

had access to information from within the Irish police. In 1989,

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the Garda, with support from the RUC, was adamant there was no Garda

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Leake. I reject any suggestion of that kind. Categorically, the

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evidence which we have firmly confirms to us that there was no

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more. 24 years later, Judge Smethwick find that certain officers

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in Dundalk were close to the IRA and utterly from the station led

:14:45.:14:47.

directly to the deaths of Harry Breen and Robert Buchanan. He

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dismissed efforts that the gardai had made to investigate the

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allegations over the years and in relation to the tribunal, well he

:14:57.:15:00.

plays some individual guards for their honest evidence, he found that

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are part of a culture which simply sought to deny any suggestion of

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collusion. These were two very singular RUC officers. They were

:15:12.:15:16.

murdered in brutal circumstances by the IRA, he seemed to have an

:15:17.:15:19.

incredible amount of information on their movements. If you follow on

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from that, there were other killings that have taken place. If it had

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emerged that the gardai had assisted the IRA to carry out several

:15:31.:15:33.

different murders, the consequences of that entering the public we were

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too much -- the public domain, were too much for the forced to bear. It

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was a culture that is said continues to this day. In the opinion of Judge

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Smethwick, the Garda Siochana is of course that's praises loyalty more

:15:55.:16:02.

than honesty. It wasn't just around some dork that collusion surfaced.

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New evidence of a separate Garda-IRA collusion is emerging in another

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border area. The border is three miles in that direction. John lives

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outside Castle Jurgen County Tyrone. The minority Protestant community

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here is miles from the County Dunning border. In April 1991 his

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brother was killed as he sat in a car at his parent -- parents's

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home. He was 23. My father heard the shooting, heard the car speeding

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off, went out to find his son slumped over the steering wheel. His

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son was dead. He came back into the house. My mother was in hysterics.

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They tried to phone us. Somebody from the IRA phoned to say have you

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been I get to see what we have done. Until it happens to yourself, you

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don't know what it is like. Our past are present. What happened 23 years

:17:19.:17:21.

ago is just like it happened yesterday. That is the truth. The

:17:22.:17:31.

document, given to a journalist reports to show that Mr Sproule was

:17:32.:17:38.

a suspected member of the UVF and was wanted for questioning. I Garda

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document identifying him as a suspected Loyalist paramilitary

:17:47.:17:49.

ended up in the hands of the IRA. His family has always denied the

:17:50.:17:58.

accusation. It wasn't true, but unfortunately it is cost up, if you

:17:59.:18:04.

name a person, it goes all around the area. His name was blackened. It

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emerged during the Smethwick earrings that both the gardai and

:18:11.:18:18.

the RUC carried out investigations into how the IRA got hold of this

:18:19.:18:26.

document. We have a copy of the RUC investigation. It reveals that the

:18:27.:18:31.

gardai and Donny G would taking an entry interest and Ian Sproule in

:18:32.:18:36.

the weeks before he was killed. It concluded it was, beyond doubt, that

:18:37.:18:44.

there was I gardai leak to the IRA. In fact, we have been told some of

:18:45.:18:48.

the information about alleged collusion supplied to the RUC came

:18:49.:18:54.

from gardai who were concerned that some of their colleagues might have

:18:55.:18:58.

been core operating with the IRA. Form over two decades, John and

:18:59.:19:02.

Jennifer were totally unaware of the RUC report. The parallel gardai

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investigation at the time reported that it could not find the leak.

:19:09.:19:15.

Spotlight has been told that the forces to exchange reports, but

:19:16.:19:19.

nothing happened. It is a revelation that has shocked the family. We are

:19:20.:19:24.

lost for words. We can't understand that. Common sense would say that

:19:25.:19:30.

something is up here. The police force and justice system should be

:19:31.:19:33.

doing something for us. This needs to be lived into. It seems to be

:19:34.:19:41.

brushed under the carpet. I feel that the RUC and the 25 Micro have

:19:42.:19:50.

wanted to hide this because if the truth that, got the time, it was

:19:51.:20:00.

going to frighten people. When the Smithwick Tribunal investigated

:20:01.:20:04.

collusion in the murders of Harry Breen and Robert Buchanan, its focus

:20:05.:20:13.

turned to three guard I -- 25 Micro stationed in Dundalk. They were

:20:14.:20:21.

former Sergeant Finbar Hickey. Hickey was convicted in 2001 other

:20:22.:20:24.

signing applications for forced -- for false passports that end up in

:20:25.:20:31.

the hands of IRA members. He has denied knowing that the passport

:20:32.:20:37.

went to the IRA. The Smithwick Tribunal was satisfied he had no

:20:38.:20:40.

involvement in the murders of the two policeman, based on the fact he

:20:41.:20:47.

was not on duty that day. Smethwick accepted that this man helped the

:20:48.:20:58.

IRA. Colton has always categorically denied having any associations with

:20:59.:21:02.

the IRA. Smethwick said there was insufficient evidence to connect him

:21:03.:21:07.

to the murders of Harry Breen and Robert Buchanan. Both Hickey and

:21:08.:21:11.

Colton declined to speak to this programme. Owen Corrigan. Smethwick

:21:12.:21:21.

find that he had a series of inappropriate dealings with the IRA

:21:22.:21:26.

over a number of years. The judge said there was insufficient evidence

:21:27.:21:31.

that Corrigan ticked off the IRA in the murders of Harry Breen and

:21:32.:21:36.

Robert Buchanan. Corrigan declined to appear in this programme, citing

:21:37.:21:40.

ill-health. In a statement he said any evidence presented to the

:21:41.:21:45.

enquiry suggesting he had any inappropriate relationship with the

:21:46.:21:50.

IRA was rumour and gossip. Totally unsubstantiated and did not

:21:51.:21:56.

constitute legal evidence. Judge Smethwick did not find the source of

:21:57.:22:00.

the collusion, but he did expose major problems in the ranks of done

:22:01.:22:08.

dark Gardai station. The station at Dundalk, trying to police an area

:22:09.:22:12.

that was almost ungovernable. He had a high concentration of Republican

:22:13.:22:19.

paramilitaries, organised crime was rife. Anybody standing back could

:22:20.:22:23.

see that police officers are vulnerable in those circumstances,

:22:24.:22:26.

particularly if you're dealing with an organisation like the IRA. The

:22:27.:22:30.

fact that there were certain individual officers heavily involved

:22:31.:22:38.

in corruption and wrong doing does not come as a surprise to me. The

:22:39.:22:42.

fact that no one took them on and tried to stop it and that this

:22:43.:22:46.

indiscipline continued, that does not surprise me either. It is not a

:22:47.:22:50.

huge problem within the force, but it has been uncertain divisions. It

:22:51.:22:52.

happens. In 1989, businessman John Mack on

:22:53.:23:09.

old team was shot dead by the IRA. He was a cross-border smuggler and a

:23:10.:23:15.

RUC informer. Smethwick heard that for years before his death he told

:23:16.:23:23.

his RUC handlers that are 24 Micro in special Branch was helping the

:23:24.:23:31.

IRA. He named Owen Corrigan. In a statement to Spotlight, Owen

:23:32.:23:36.

Corrigan rejected this entirely. He said that the police intelligence

:23:37.:23:41.

naming him as a link to the IRA was impossible to verify. That it was

:23:42.:23:51.

mere rumour and hearsay. Tom Oliver was also killed by the IRA. He was a

:23:52.:24:02.

farmer in County Louth. Judge Smethwick excepted witness accounts

:24:03.:24:07.

that Owen Corrigan had told the IRA that Oliver had been passing

:24:08.:24:13.

information on IRA had to do these to the gardai. It is one of the most

:24:14.:24:17.

controversial aspects to the report. Owen Corrigan believed it implicated

:24:18.:24:22.

him directly in the murder of Oliver. He rejects this entirely. He

:24:23.:24:30.

has been granted permission to challenge the section of the report.

:24:31.:24:35.

Spotlight has contacted a number of gardai who worked in Dundalk at that

:24:36.:24:40.

time. Privately, all of them except that there was a problem at the

:24:41.:24:44.

station but some are very critical of the Smithwick Report, believing

:24:45.:24:49.

there was not enough direct evidence to be a finding of collusion. They

:24:50.:24:53.

also felt that all of them have been left under a cloud of suspicion, but

:24:54.:24:57.

none would agree to talk on camera. Since Smethwick published his

:24:58.:25:02.

report, and a number of plays and scandals in the South has revealed

:25:03.:25:06.

allegations of corruption and cover-up in the modern-day force and

:25:07.:25:11.

amid a public eye cry over pleasing standards, the Commissioner and the

:25:12.:25:16.

Irish Justice Minister have both resign. Among the present-day

:25:17.:25:21.

scandals, it emerged that gardai had recordings of conversations at some

:25:22.:25:27.

police stations for over 30 years. These could have been of real

:25:28.:25:31.

importance to Judge Smethwick, but we can confirm that the gardai never

:25:32.:25:37.

told him about the tapes. Our wholesale review of police and

:25:38.:25:42.

failure is now proposed. Observers in the South said the scandals have

:25:43.:25:47.

still a way to go. They have claimed the head of the Minister, I gardai

:25:48.:25:51.

Commissioner, and independent ombudsman. There are police boards

:25:52.:25:57.

coming in because of that. This is still ongoing. There are still

:25:58.:26:01.

reports to come out on investigations launched as a result

:26:02.:26:05.

of the scandals. Elsewhere, there are calls for the gardai to deal

:26:06.:26:10.

with the claims of collusion bonds and parole. It will be important for

:26:11.:26:16.

the families of the bereaved, showing that a proper enquiry has

:26:17.:26:20.

been done and they now know more about the did beforehand is -- than

:26:21.:26:28.

they did beforehand. It should be welcomed by the Irish police because

:26:29.:26:32.

it plays their problems and we have all made the mistake of thinking

:26:33.:26:37.

that problems can be brushed aside, or that it is only a small case and

:26:38.:26:42.

not a systemic problem. That is not healthy in the long run. Of all the

:26:43.:26:51.

cases of alleged collusion, Spotlight understands there is only

:26:52.:26:54.

one being investigated. Terence McKeever was killed by the IRA in

:26:55.:27:00.

South Armagh in 1986 and 28 years later, the Gardai is accused of

:27:01.:27:13.

hindering a current investigation. The firm did work for RUC stations

:27:14.:27:23.

and the Garda. He was a businessman carrying out a day's work. He had no

:27:24.:27:28.

political ideals. Terence had friends both sides of the border,

:27:29.:27:32.

all religions, so it was a big shock.

:27:33.:27:37.

Spotlight has seen the report into the killing which reveals that the

:27:38.:27:42.

gun used was also use in the murders of Breen and Buchanan. It reveals

:27:43.:27:50.

that 16 items of forensic evidence linked to the murder and stored by

:27:51.:27:55.

the Garda went missing. Karen refuses to believe this was an

:27:56.:27:59.

accident. This is a murder case. It is not like a packet of sweets going

:28:00.:28:03.

missing from a shop. That shouldn't happen. If people are doing their

:28:04.:28:09.

job properly and not incompetent that wouldn't have happened. No

:28:10.:28:12.

walks in off the street and lifts those items so an inside was

:28:13.:28:17.

involved so it is a member of the Gardai. I feel like the Gardai

:28:18.:28:25.

should be investigated. In 2009, she asked the Gardai ombudsman's office

:28:26.:28:29.

to investigate. Five years later, she is still waiting for a report in

:28:30.:28:33.

its findings and in the letter to Karen the ombudsman's office reveals

:28:34.:28:38.

a problem. It has been a lack of co-operation. Not only from former

:28:39.:28:43.

Guards but in dealing with the present day force. The Garda told

:28:44.:28:49.

Spotlight it could not comment as the ombudsman's inquiry is ongoing.

:28:50.:28:55.

They haven't co-operated otherwise it wouldn't have taken five years to

:28:56.:28:59.

complete a report. It makes me angry. I thought the Guards upheld

:29:00.:29:07.

law and order and didn't obstruct the course of jus of justice and

:29:08.:29:15.

because Terence worked with them I thought they would respect his case.

:29:16.:29:23.

It is thought the ombudsman is likely to clund clund conclude soon.

:29:24.:29:30.

It said: John ma burny is calling for an

:29:31.:29:39.

inquiry into the cases of alleged collusion. It makes you think that

:29:40.:29:49.

when Judge Smithwick finds in March 199 a guard or guards provided the

:29:50.:29:53.

information to the same terrorist grouping that in 1988 who was

:29:54.:30:00.

providing information which led to the murder by mistake of the Hanna

:30:01.:30:06.

family who was providing information which led to the murder of Lord

:30:07.:30:13.

Justice Gibson and Lady Gibson who perhaps was assisting in the

:30:14.:30:19.

disposal of forensics in the murder of Terence McKeever and the

:30:20.:30:25.

movements of the Brink's-Mat van in 1985, all of those events could have

:30:26.:30:31.

been contaminated by information from a guard or guards. That leaves

:30:32.:30:37.

you asking the question -- do we not need to probe each and everyone of

:30:38.:30:42.

those incidents in an organised and structured way in order to identify

:30:43.:30:58.

precisely who the ka colluder or Colluders are?

:30:59.:31:08.

This is Sean Gerrard Hughes. He is a leading South Armagh republican.

:31:09.:31:12.

During the Smithwick Tribunal a former RUC Special Branch officer

:31:13.:31:15.

named him as the leader of an IRA unit which carried out 80 murders in

:31:16.:31:24.

the Armagh Louth border region. That unit has been linked to all of the

:31:25.:31:32.

murders in which collusion is suspected in that area. We asked him

:31:33.:31:36.

to speak to the programme. Through his solicitor he declined stating

:31:37.:31:42.

any broadcast of such allegations would be prejudicial. He has never

:31:43.:31:46.

been charged in connection with any of these murders and denies any

:31:47.:31:53.

participation in IRA activities. But Spotlight understands that Sean

:31:54.:31:58.

Gerrard Hughes led a three-man IRA delegation which met with the

:31:59.:32:04.

Smithwick Tribunal. We asked him about this allegation which was

:32:05.:32:07.

reported in the media while the tribunal was ongoing. He declined to

:32:08.:32:13.

comment. I think the IRA in South Armagh believed this could be a

:32:14.:32:16.

moment where they would come across as co-operating with the tribunal in

:32:17.:32:20.

a definitive moment in their own history. It didn't work out that way

:32:21.:32:23.

for them. In his report, Smithwick said parts

:32:24.:32:27.

of what the IRA told him about the Breen and Buchanan murders was

:32:28.:32:31.

accepted. He said other parts of their

:32:32.:32:37.

evidence did not stand up. In many ways the statement he made to

:32:38.:32:43.

tribunal made a mockery of the claims for ommissions and inquiries

:32:44.:32:48.

where the truth will be revealed about these matters. This was a

:32:49.:32:51.

classic case where the IRA could have shown some good faith and told

:32:52.:32:56.

the truth about what happened, but it went back that they had people

:32:57.:33:01.

within the Guards and they had to protect them. Unionist and

:33:02.:33:05.

nationalist politicians simply said the IRA lied. If the Smithwick

:33:06.:33:12.

Tribunal is a test case for the IRA to participate in some truth

:33:13.:33:17.

commission, it really failed abysmally because they came back to

:33:18.:33:20.

defending their members and covering up what happened. The IRA can't come

:33:21.:33:24.

out and say what it did because then we're getting into who knew what and

:33:25.:33:30.

when? That could be dynamite for Sinn Fein and destroy their

:33:31.:33:34.

leadership for once and for all if they were to tell the truth and

:33:35.:33:37.

that's why they never will and they never can.

:33:38.:33:41.

As the dust settles on the Smithwick Report, the families of the victims

:33:42.:33:45.

in these cases are demanding the Irish Government does not draw a

:33:46.:33:51.

veil over their murders. The victims group which John Sproule is a member

:33:52.:33:55.

of has been trying for over a year to get a meeting with the Irish

:33:56.:34:02.

Government without success. The Smithwick Tribunal has brought Ian

:34:03.:34:09.

back into the limelight and I'm glad that happened. We want to stay open

:34:10.:34:17.

and sort it out once and for all and whoever dealt with the Garda ka

:34:18.:34:22.

conclusion needs to be dealt with in the Irish State.

:34:23.:34:29.

We asked both the Garda commissioner and the Irish Justice Minister to

:34:30.:34:32.

take part in this programme, but they declined. And a spokeswoman for

:34:33.:34:37.

the Taoiseach said he had already met and will continue to engage with

:34:38.:34:48.

many victims groups. But some observers say dealing with the past

:34:49.:34:53.

is not a priority in the south. The Smithwick Tribunal report at this

:34:54.:34:57.

stage is history in the south of Ireland. It was something that was

:34:58.:35:02.

seen as being far away and long ago. These are still live political

:35:03.:35:07.

issues in Northern Irish politics specifically. I don't think we'll

:35:08.:35:12.

ever know those things. Maybe in 75 years there will be some archives

:35:13.:35:17.

that will be opened in the National Archives and we can read some

:35:18.:35:21.

reports of some things, but for now, we'll never know.

:35:22.:35:28.

Telling the full story of what happened in this border area will

:35:29.:35:33.

depend on truthful accounts from north and south. The most recent

:35:34.:35:39.

proposals for dealing with the past said the Irish State will have to

:35:40.:35:47.

play its role. Something John Mc Birney says is overdue. The innocent

:35:48.:35:51.

victims in all of this carry hurt with them every day. The hurt is

:35:52.:36:00.

compounded when someone says, "We need to move beyond your hurt." That

:36:01.:36:05.

doubles the hurt and the sense of vulnerability, and the sense of

:36:06.:36:10.

isolation and the sense of not being able to make any progress in what

:36:11.:36:18.

for many people has become almost a lifetime endeavour to get

:36:19.:36:23.

scratchings of information to piece together what happened their loved

:36:24.:36:27.

ones. People who have lost so much over these years, that's what

:36:28.:36:32.

they're longing for. Those details. And that acknowledgement. In the

:36:33.:36:41.

meantime, the victims are left wondering. You just try to show a

:36:42.:36:50.

brave face when you're talking to people, but in the back of your mind

:36:51.:37:00.

you can see Trady's face -- Tracy Tracy's face.

:37:01.0:30:06

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