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State Murder 3, Section 7

WEETON

 

Patrick Magee & Other Events

As far back as autumn 1986 I easily understood the implications of the Weeton conspiracy to bomb case. It was not necessary for me through research and analysis to expose the frailty of the court presented evidence, as carried in newspaper reports and dissected in the previous numbered presentations. That understanding was contemporaneous to the reading. The analysis of the court reports is for the benefit of the reader. It is a pre-emptive strike at those who would seek to undermine the reality behind state lies, that people died as a consequence of the operational mores of the Security Service and to a lesser extent its junior partner in crime, the relevant section of Irish Special Branch.

State intelligence agencies do not reap what they sow. The whirlwind is left for others.

It is that truth the Weeton presentation aims at. The intention of the exercise is to make point by marrying newspaper reporting of the Thomas Maguire trial, the state picture, with that known to have been withheld from the court presented evidence, the wider picture – or part of.

The ability to paint the broader picture is made possible through having connection. My knowing is through that connection. An elaboration of that knowing comes through extensive research and analysis and by the grace of good souls gone to God.

Since the June 1994 original typing of the aforegoing compilations, further disclosures with relevance to the Weeton operation have come to light. They, with added context, are listed below.

 

A) PHOENIX – POLICING THE SHADOWS (Pangbourne IRA Arms Cache)


Co-authored by Jack Holland and Susan Phoenix. Published by Hodder & Stoughton, London, 1996. This book, bought and read in February 1997, offers truncated, anodyne, and, one suspects, some inadvertent disclosure on paramilitary matters to do with Northern Ireland. It likely received official scrutiny before publication. The vetting machine if alive to the proscribed, is at times blind to the peripherally related. One is thankful for small mercies.

It is also blind to that which it has no knowledge.

One such small mercy is this paragraph on page 124: "A fingerprint found on the (Grand Hotel, Brighton) registration card, signed in the name of Roy Walsh on 15 September (1984), was identified as belonging to Patrick Magee, a known member of the PIRA. Magee was wanted in connection with an arms find in England in 1983, as was Evelyn Glenholmes...."

The "arms find in England in 1983" is Pangbourne. So the cache that fed the Weeton conspiracy to bomb mission was Pangbourne, as I, since autumn 1986, believed it to be. Yet there was no reported reference to this at the Weeton trial.

Intelligence on the Pangbourne cache will have been given to those concerned with high-level security on a need to know basis. That is how Detective Superintendent Ian Phoenix, head of Northern Ireland police (Special Branch) counter-surveillance unit, got it. The use of his notes to write the above book in his memory, following his death in a Mull of Kintyre helicopter crash in 1994, gives formal imprimatur to the Patrick Magee-Pangbourne connection, and is as near as you will get to an official affirmation that it provisioned the Weeton operation.

That it was Pangbourne is not a surprise. The surprise is to get confirmation from a top security source, albeit from the grave, as it were. This information should have become public property at the Weeton trial; but because of the implications attached to the hoard, and two others of like, it was kept under wraps. It is another example of the manifest corruption that exists in the legal-security world. The system that postures as defender of state probity is a rotten apple that has endemically sullied due process over many years. All this in the name of the people.

The use of the Pangbourne arms dump in the Weeton bombing intention, and its implications for the Brighton Grand Hotel bombing, are so cloaked in secrecy that even the state vetting machine for publications, like Phoenix – Policing the Shadows, seemed not to know of it.

At the risk of repetition: one is thankful for small mercies.

Note: Patrick Magee is alleged to have had involvement in more than one IRA operation which used stores from the Pangbourne cache. So it follows he may have had contact with the contents on more than one occasion. If we can point to Pangbourne being the supply source for the planned Weeton bombing, we are still at a loss as to what happened the materiel after the great IRA Lancashire chase-out. Our servants do not want us to know.

See Corroborative Section Item Number 11

 

B) THE INFORMER (1) – Reference Patrick Magee


An extract from The Informer follows. Book by Seán O’Callaghan, published in 1998 by Bantam Press, London. Purchased Wednesday 29 August 2001 and read early days September 2001. I quote from page 146.

"Around the middle of May everything was finally in place for my trip to England. My Garda contact told me that Pat Murray and Pat Magee were in the Preston/Blackpool area and were under surveillance by the English police and under no circumstance was I to link up with them."

The month was in fact April (1983).

Manifest in the writing of the Weeton compilation was a familiarity with the modus operandi and the lying ways of the security services. I did say Weeton was a set-up job and exit from Ireland and entry into England in April 1983 of Magee and Murray will have been known to the respective authorities from the outset. It is with confidence I say that this intelligence was not solely dependent upon exchanges between the IRA and the Blackpool based agent provocateur Raymond O'Connor. And, of course, there was no need for photographic identification.

The quoted extract from The Informer book confirms: a) An IRA team was in the "Preston/Blackpool" area; b) They were under surveillance; c) Their identities were known.

QED – What you do not know about something is often worth a lot more than that which you do know, and what you do know is what you have been given. The moral of the story? Never believe professional liars – in court or out.

 

C) THE INFORMER (2) – Pangbourne (IRA Arms Cache)


An extract from The Informer follows. Book by Seán O'Callaghan, published in 1998 by Bantam Press, London. Purchased Wednesday 29 August 2001 and read early days September 2001. To lend context to the next point, the quoted section will be reasonably lengthy. I borrow from pages 112-115 of the book.

Throughout the (1981 hunger) strike the IRA's England department had been assiduously preparing for the moment when they would move into action. During the summer of 1981 Mick Hayes, quartermaster to the England department, had been a regular visitor to Kerry and to Mick Brassil in particular. I had introduced Brassil to Mick Hayes several months before in Limerick. I knew that Hayes would immediately see that Brassil could be extremely useful in transporting explosives and weapons to England.

Once it was obvious that the hunger strike was drawing to an end, the IRA was desperate to begin bombing prestige targets in England....

It was (Brassil's) haulage business that interested Mick Hayes and the IRA. For a number of years Brassil had a regular contract to deliver mussels from Cromane in Kerry to Billingsgate Market in London. Hayes recognised that it would be relatively easy to hide explosives and guns in amongst the mussels and transport them to the active service unit in England.

Several meetings were arranged at Tralee (in Kerry) and Dublin involving Jerry (sic) Tuite, an IRA man from County Cavan who had recently escaped from Brixton prison in London, Mick Hayes, Owen Coogan and Albert Flynn. I was aware from Brassil of almost every single detail of the operation and passed on all of those details to my Garda contact. Brassil consistently came to me for advice and reassurance. He was not supposed to do this and in a subsequent enquiry said nothing about our relationship to the England department.

Angelo Fusco, who had struck up a very friendly relationship with Brassil, was brought in to help, and Brassil also had an assistant with him on the journey – a local IRA man who sometimes worked for him.

Early in October 1981 Hayes travelled to Kerry with the explosives and guns. They were brought to Brassil's pub, where, upstairs, Fusco and Brassil packed the materials and weighed it. Because Brassil's documents would show a specific weight of mussels it was necessary to make sure that the weight of the crates remained the same when the explosives were substituted for mussels.

The night that Brassil and his helper were due to leave for Roslare in County Wexford to take the ferry to Fishguard (in Wales for transshipment onto England)....I told my Garda contact that Brassil's lorry was on its way. I had suggested to him on a number of occasions during the build-up that the sensible thing to do would be to let the lorry proceed to the service station on the M4 where it would be met by the active service unit, which comprised, among others, Thomas Quigley and Paul Kavanagh – later jailed for their involvement in IRA bombings in England. The lorry alone would lead police to at least two members of the ASU (active service unit), who could then be tailed to the rest of its members.

Brassil returned to Tralee to report that everything had gone perfectly. So far as I was aware everything was under control – the right information was in the right hands, or so I thought.

On Saturday 10 October, 1981, a remote control bomb in a van at Chelsea Barracks in London killed an elderly woman and a teenager and injured twenty-three soldiers and sixteen policemen, some seriously. On the following Saturday Sir Stewart (sic) Pringle, Commandant General of the Royal Marines, lost a leg when a Provisional IRA bomb exploded in his car in London.

I could not understand what was happening. I spoke to my Garda contact...”What's going on”, I asked. “What do you mean”, he said. “About England”, I said, a little pissed off at this stage. “Oh we'd never trust the English police with that sort of information. Now if it was the RUC that would be different.” I simply could not believe what I was hearing. I had deliberately infiltrated Brassil into the IRA's England department. Months of work, at no little risk, had gone into ensuring that everything planned by Brassil, Hayes and Coogan was known to Garda Special Branch. The IRA's active service organisation on the ground in England could have been wiped out in one stroke. Instead the Garda appeared to have allowed their plans to develop and had done nothing about it.

 

Whether to Britain or the Continent, it was collective state policy to allow the unchallenged transfer of munitions abroad. The non-interception of goods in transit protected informer sources. Also, when buried and known about, the IRA arms cache became a veritable sitting duck – a loft for homing pigeons.

But then, wasn’t that the intention?


Mr O’Callaghan was lied to. He lied for them. They lied to him. A secret state quid pro quo. But there is compensation, bit parts in television documentaries, a writer of newspaper articles. A miniature Lord Haw-Haw in an open air prison.

At least Mr O’Callaghan does not use a pseudonym, unlike the “Martin’s”, “Sam’s”, “Kevin’s”, and others, who, at a remove, stooge for MI5. In the world of smoke and mirrors the dirty work is farmed out. Sotto voce dummies do the ventriloquist’s bidding.

A sidestep from peddling death and destruction on behalf of state interests to mutilating truth on behalf of the same interests.

(Lest you think my judgement harsh, these machines without face do more than bite the hand that feeds them: by acting out false portrayals of freedoms they cheat us. Real cases have no outlets. For raw truth there is no exposure. No accountability. No justice. In that inversion you see another hidden reality of the democratic process.)

The identities of the IRA unit in London was known. Their whereabouts known. The location of the Pangbourne cache known. The above detailed transfer of munitions from County Kerry to England, and other transfers to Pangbourne or safe houses, will have been known of independent of Seán O'Callaghan's informing. One judges that Garda Special Branch had over the years a number of lines to the IRA's England department. For operational-intelligence reasons the IRA's autumn 1981 London campaign was allowed to proceed without interdiction. You can add to that the December 1980-January 1981 London bombings, and the July 1982 Hyde Park and Regents Park bombings. All had connection with the Pangbourne arms cache.

The irony of it: informers informing on informers. While extraneous complications may have existed for the authorities in respect of London bombings in 1981 and 1982, I believe other difficulties were bound up with the success of their infiltration of the republican movement – too many informers to protect. Whatever the problems attached to taking an action resulting in arrests that may have necessitated the inclusion of informers, and the compromising of informers, it in no way mitigates allowing death and injuries to others in the observation of policy mores. Operations that could have been prevented, should have been.

Note: Though Mr. O'Callaghan does not precisely date the above arms transfer, a specific date can be attributed to it. However, I thought it better omitted because when dating retrospectively, if one is dependent on memory, dates can sometimes be wrong. In truth, there is more than one such incidental mistake in his book. Even with great care, without contemporaneous logging, errors like that are difficult to avoid.

 

D) WEETON – Raymond O'Connor (Trips to Dublin)


The Guardian, Wednesday 08.10.86 – “While (Brendan) Swords retired from the (Sinn Fein) national executive in 1984, Thomas Maguire went on to take a higher diploma in education and in the summer of 1984 became a qualified teacher. He regularly visited Blackpool and moved there permanently in December 1984, attracting occasional Special Branch attention. O'Connor, apparently unsuspected as an informer, continued to visit the IRA in Dublin." That says Raymond O'Connor carried on visiting the IRA after the chase-out of Magee and Murray from Lancashire and Britain in April 1983. Incredible but true, as they say.

(I can't but find that report exceptionally revealing. On reading it, there is an involuntary shaking of the head.)

Accepting that it accurately reflects post Weeton events, it confirms that Raymond O'Connor had a cool head, was brave – and more. It calls into question the IRA's capacity for assessment. They did not twig that the Weeton project was foisted on them by the authorities. They failed to work out what went wrong with it – and why. The next indictment is even more damning of the IRA.

Yes, Raymond O'Connor was brave and cool headed. That said, his visits to Dublin and the IRA will have been subject to precautions taken on his behalf by the Irish and British security services. The man was obviously satisfied with those assurances. Wouldn't the best assurance be to know that he was safe and not under suspicion from the IRA consequent of events in Lancashire in April 1983? It seems he was so assured. His entry into the IRA den would otherwise have been foolhardy to a degree. Were the IRA to have got wind of his true allegiance, the singular conclusion, had they their way, was a death sentence.

So it was felt that O'Connor was under no undue risk in visiting the IRA in Dublin. And duly he went there. And weren't those assurances well based? He walked into the lion's den and walked out again – unscathed.

The origins of such positive assurances could only have come from within the IRA.

After the great republican chase-out from Weeton the authorities should have called it a day on that one and put O'Connor out to grass. But, no. Was it because important but unknown future intentions were at stake – the apparent IRA interest in the Imperial Hotel in Blackpool, or the Grand Hotel in Brighton, venues for alternating Conservative Party conferences, that MI5 continued to send O'Connor into the fray? The authorities knew of the conference interest and wanted to know more. The measure of risk to O'Connor, with the knowledge that his bona fides were unchallenged by the IRA, was surely acceptable given the possible returns in intelligence. If an IRA bombing attempt was to be mounted on the Conservative Party conference in Blackpool, the first opportunity after the Weeton fiasco was October 1983. History confirms nothing got off the ground. Was that down to the IRA's chastening Weeton experience (and the resulting write-off of the Pangbourne cache)?

Blackpool's turn would come around again in autumn 1985. The republican movement might once more wish to employ O'Connor as a local conduit. The IRA seemed to reposit trust in him. So did MI5. Maybe too much.

Whatever intelligence was derived from O'Connor's visits to Dublin, outside of the Weeton operation, it was limited and uncertain. That we can say with some certainty. The bombing of the Grand Hotel in Brighton – the meat in the sandwich – makes the point.

 

E) PANGBOURNE – IRA ARMS CACHE (Letters Pertaining To)


1) I refer to my letter of Monday 22.04.02 to Sir Steuart Pringle, former Commandant General of the Royal Marines. An extract from the three page communication follows:

Some part of the common ground we share is that the republican group to which it was mistakenly believed I had connection, is the same group which carried out the autumn 1981 series of London bombings, those actions which saw three people killed and others seriously injured, including your good self.

You will indubitably know much about that bombing campaign. It is what you do not know that will, one suspects, shock you.

That particular IRA bombing mission, like some other operations before and after, was compromised from the outset. The respective state security agencies, Irish and British, had advance knowledge of the operation, the location of an established arms cache, the transfer of additional munitions from Ireland to England prior to the commencement of the bombings, the personnel involved – and where they were living, but sought not to interdict the operation. It was policy to allow the bombings to proceed.


This was so in order to protect an informer of high standing in the IRA. Those who died, those who were injured – like you, were in all but name sacrificial lambs set up for slaughter. In another context, it was the same for me.


2) I refer to my letter of Monday 13.05.02 to Sir Steuart Pringle, former Commandant General of the Royal Marines. An extract from the two page communication follows:

The specifics in my previous communication had in the main to do with you, the injuries you received and why, if not how, they came about.

You know that three people were killed in the autumn 1981 series of IRA London bombings and many more again received injuries – some, like yourself, serious.

The first attack in those bombings was the detonation of a car bomb on Saturday 10 October as a coach of Irish Guards was being driven along Ebury Bridge Road to Chelsea Barracks. Two civilians died and 35 were injured, including many guardsmen.

"That particular IRA bombing mission, like some other operations before and after, was compromised from the outset...” – My letter to you, 22 April 2002.

Another compromised operation allowed to proceed without interdiction were the 20 July 1982 actions known as the Hyde Park and Regents Park bombings. Eleven soldiers died, four from the Household Cavalry and seven from the band of the Royal Green Jackets.


Both of the above letters to Sir Steuart Pringle were forwarded by registered post. There was no return.

3) On Saturday 25.01.03, I wrote to Mrs. Nuala O'Loan, Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland, enclosing copies of the Sir Steuart Pringle letters and copies of my submissions to Willie Penrose TD, the (Irish) Labour Party, and Senator Jim Higgins, Fine Gael Party.

Herewith two paragraphs from the one page letter to Mrs. O'Loan:

The enclosed items of correspondence are given to you not for any prospect of benefit to my person: it is not a submission on my behalf. My case does not come within your remit.

However the content, in respect of two letters dated Monday 22.04.02 and Monday 13.05.02 to Sir Steuart Pringle, KCB., Bt., a former Commandant General of the Royal Marines, may benefit you through the grant of understanding. That understanding has to do with specifically identified IRA actions in London which, though compromised from the outset, were allowed to proceed in order to protect an informer/informers. Deaths and serious injuries resulted….


Though this information was forwarded to Mrs. O'Loan for, as it were, "information only" purposes, the good lady gave a quick reply. She sent on the name and address of Sir Alistair Graham, Chairman, Police Complaints Authority, London SWIP 3AE, should I wish to contact him.

4) On Thursday 30.01.03 I despatched a two page letter to Sir Alistair Graham, enclosing copies of all the correspondence forwarded to Mrs. O'Loan, including my letter to her and her reply to me.

Not having had an acknowledgement or a return by Saturday 22.02.03, on that day I wrote to two British members of parliament, enclosing a copy of my letter to Sir Alistair Graham, indicating in one communication that no acknowledgement or return was received.

One expects the two letters to the MP’s will have landed in that august symbol of parliamentary democracy, the House of Commons, on Monday 24.02.03. I am confident they did.

On Tuesday 25.02.03 a letter arrived from Sir Alistair Graham, in reply to mine of the 30th ultimo. Let’s just say I considered it not helpful.

After receiving Sir Alistair’s letter a decision was made to purchase a computer and put a reasoned presentation on the Internet. The intention is to rise above and defeat the system. If I make case, will you – the readers – make it public? Only thus will justice be seen to be done.

Incidentally, the letter from Sir Alistair was dated 12 February 2003, with a matching post franking, implying it took thirteen days to get from London to Dublin. I don't believe it. A letter from London can be in Dublin the following day.

When subsequently the disparity between the letter date and its received date was brought to the attention of the postman, he laughed in disbelief.

 

 

F) PANGBOURNE – IRA ARMS CACHE (Disclosure Of)


Because this is a stand alone section, I must once again introduce the context in which the Pangbourne arms cache saw the light of day – the public disclosure of it, that is. Its uncovering rather than its discovery! I borrow from document State Murder 1.

Tuesday 18.10.83 – Wellington, New Zealand. As was done in a preliminary form the night before, I report to the central police station an intelligence agency attempt to murder me. The report was also made to the Deputy High Commissioner at the British High Commission and by telephone from the foyer of the national parliament building to a junior member of the New Zealand government.

[Following the above reports I took to a headlong dash that would ultimately take me from New Zealand to Australia and then to Britain.]

Wednesday 19.10.83 (12.30am) – Robert Lean supergrass escapes. In describing his escape, "Lean said: 'I went to bed in Palace Barracks and took the (car) keys (left on a fireplace by a policeman). I shaved a growth off and went out the window. I took his car and drove by the main entrance. I was waved on by the sentry and drove on and landed with my family in Belfast.'" – The Irish Press, Thursday 20.10.83.

Lean remained with his family for the night. The following morning he went to Oliver Kelly, solicitor, with whom he drew up an affidavit "retracting his evidence against 28 people."

"While Lean appeared at the Sinn Fein press conference (in the) afternoon a lawyer delivered to the DPP's office the affidavit." – The Irish Times, Thursday 20.10.83. The same report said: "Police and soldiers surrounded the press conference building. About 15 minutes after the press conference ended, Lean left the building with Mrs. Eileen Kelly, a barrister, but two police came to the car and took Lean out. One said, 'Come on Robert, you're being arrested under section 12 of the Emergency Provisions Act as a suspected terrorist.'"

The Irish Press, Thursday 20.10.83 – “South Antrim Official Unionist Assembly man, Mr. Frazer Agnew, has called for a full scale investigation into Lean's 'escape'. He said security was becoming a real laughing stock in Northern Ireland….He demanded that the two RUC officers who were guarding Lean and the two soldiers on checkpoint duty at the barracks should be suspended from duty immediately."

 

[Thursday 20.10.83 – On reaching Auckland, New Zealand I purchased a flight ticket to Australia, reaching Sydney same day.]

Friday 21.10.83 – “27 named by informer to be freed." They were released this day. Evelyn Glenholmes alone was released on bail of £150 to appear at the remand court the following week, where it was indicated to her counsel charges would not proceed.

[Sunday 23.10.83, in Melbourne, I purchased a flight ticket to England, arriving Heathrow Airport, London on Monday 24.]

Monday 24.10.83 – I report by telephone from the ground floor of the Queen Anne's Gate building, London to the office of Douglas Hurd M.P., Minister of State, Home Office, on an intelligence agency attempt to murder me while abroad.

Tuesday 25.10.83 – The scheduled day for the formal withdrawal of charges against Miss Glenholmes.

Wednesday 26.10.83 – About midday I call on my Coventry solicitor, Mr. A.V.N. (Tony) Richards of Richards, Heynes & Coopers, Solicitors, 101/103 New Union Street, to report an intelligence agency attempt to murder me while abroad. Mr. Richards advised I take the matter up with John Butcher M.P. and if in time he cannot help I should return to him.

Wednesday 26.10.83 – RUC (Royal Ulster Constabulary) release Robert Lean.

Wednesday 26.10.83 – I draw on a quote from the Times two days on: "Explosives find linked to the IRA." The cache was said to be "chance" found and described as "massive". It was located near Pangbourne in Berkshire. "On Wednesday night members of the anti-terrorist squad lay hidden watching the spot."

Even a police cadet dunce would treat incredulously such a course of action, the immediate public disclosure of the cache, were it not to have an ulterior operational intelligence motive.

Indications are that the Pangbourne cache was under official control from April 1983, or before, when items from the hoard were removed for the Weeton army camp conspiracy to bomb mission. Is this why it was deemed an easy forfeit to make a telling point in October 1983?

It would be subsequently alleged that prints of Miss Evelyn Glenholmes were found on items in the hoard. Also, the initial use if not the laying down of the cache is credited to the December 1980 and January 1981 London bombing team. The final action in that series was the planting of a bomb in an airmens’ accommodation block at Royal Air Force Uxbridge in late afternoon of Thursday 8 January 1981. It was the same active service unit, or part of, which I inadvertently travelled with on a train journey to Pembroke in Wales and then by ferry across the Irish Sea to Cork, Ireland on the night Thursday/Friday 8/9 January 1981.

That night, though not appreciative of events leading up to the crossing, I was alert to a republican group aboard the ferry. At no time did I have association with them. Some were suspicious of my passage. They enquired where I lived and were told.

Though the authorities are aware of the identities of the full IRA team involved in the London bombings of December 1980 and January 1981, no charges have been laid. Would that be related to the inviolability of the Mount Gabriel radar domes and other sensitive considerations?

Your attention is drawn to a revealing statistic. Of the five major forest/wood found IRA caches in England in those years, four were said to be the result of good intelligence work. Pangbourne was no different. A common thread runs through all of them.

The manipulative proclivities of the security services, Irish and British, would have some (including the IRA) believe otherwise. A case of not seeing the wood for the trees?

 


"On Wednesday night members of the anti-terrorist squad lay hidden watching the spot." Held under surveillance for one night? The suggestion is risible. It should have been laughed out of court. Come to think, why wasn't it?

I further draw your attention to a report in the (Belfast) News Letter of Friday 28.10.83. "(The cache) was found on Wednesday by two estate workers....Dr. Edward McLellan, a Harley Street consultant surgeon whose home overlooks the cache site....added that something disturbed his dogs at the week-end. 'Last Sunday night when I was in the house alone my two labradors started to bark and their hair stood on end. It was a sign they had heard something strange. I put on a thick dressing gown and switched on all the lights inside and outside to have a good look around. I didn't find anything but the dogs must have heard something to make them behave like that.'"

The activity at the cache site took place when I was into the tail-end, the final hours, of my flight from Australia to England.

From exiting Wellington, New Zealand on Tuesday 18 October 1983 to arrival at Heathrow in London on Monday 24.10.83, a distance of about 14,000 miles was covered. It was a precipitate flight. On only one of the last six nights did I sleep in a bed.

The report made direct to the Home Office, and in the same week to a solicitor and a member of parliament, on an intelligence agency attempt to murder, one would learn fifteen months on, was placed on record as a complaint on surveillance. A reply was filed against that false charge but was not at the time forwarded to me.

That grave and shameful act of deception is in keeping with other happenings up to that time. It will help explain the extraordinary events that follow....

 


Had the Pangbourne hoard been discovered by chance, as the authorities sought to present it, they would not have trumpeted it to the world. Instead they would have sat on it for as long as it reasonably took to await the arrival of those in whose ownership it was. That could mean an eventual ambush and the making of instant arrests. Another strategy would be to allow matters to develop, a bombing or other intention, to a point where maximum arrests could be made prior to an action. Just as happened at Weeton – but without the letting off.

For operational intelligence reasons that did not happen with Pangbourne.

In my earlier referred to correspondence to: 1) Sir Steuart Pringle, former Commandant General of the Royal Marines, who had a leg blown off in an undercar bomb explosion; 2) To Mrs. Nuala O'Loan, Police Ombudsman for Northern Ireland; 3) To Sir Alistair Graham, Chairman, Police Complaints Authority, London, I claimed that MI5 allowed IRA bombings to take place in the protection of an informer/informers. In his book, The Informer, Seán O'Callaghan gave explicit intelligence on the transfer of munitions from Ireland to England – stores to replenish the Pangbourne cache. I am confident that Mr. O'Callaghan's imparting of information to his Garda handler was fuller than given in his book. Yet no action was taken and the autumn 1981 London bombings were allowed to proceed.

My appreciation is that the Pangbourne cache was compromised from the outset, at least from the time of its initial use in December 1980. Further undeclared understanding reinforces this belief. But because some of it is singular and is caught up with other sensitive particulars, it is not being released. That said, further analysis of the Pangbourne cache can be aired without too much specificity. In so saying, I add: part of that which is not being made public has for some time been known to the respective authorities, the appropriate section of Special Branch in Dublin and MI5 in London. These boy scout organisations will not stand idly by and allow the truth to unfold and stand up uncontested. They will attempt to rescript history. You can put good money on that.

Another safe wager is that media friendlies will be fed tosh to effect a pre-emptive design to kill off the real with the false. The old story of the state lie finding acceptance when the truth from the peasant goes unheard. Again a classic demonstration of the Free West in action.

 

Pangbourne IRA Arms Cache (Usage Of)


a) The location of stores used for IRA London bombing operations in December 1980 and January 1981 – though known to MI5 were not publicly disclosed;

b) The location of stores used for IRA London bombing operations in autumn 1981 – though known to MI5 were not publicly disclosed;

c) The location of stores used for IRA London bombing operations in July 1982 – though known to MI5 were not publicly disclosed;

d) The location of stores for IRA Weeton conspiracy to bomb operation in April 1983 – though known to MI5 were not publicly disclosed but for operational intelligence reasons were made public through a facilitated discovery six months later.


Whatever their belief as to my coincidental January 1981 train-ferry passage with the December 1980-January 1981 returning active service unit, or part of, the IRA felt sufficiently secure in using the Pangbourne stores for the autumn 1981 series of London bombings. Once again, in July 1982, the IRA felt sufficiently secure in using the Pangbourne stores for the Hyde Park and Regents Park bombings. The swan-song for Pangbourne was its intended use in the Weeton conspiracy to bomb operation in April 1983.

I quote a paragraph from an earlier juncture in this compilation: "Indications are that the Pangbourne munitions cache was under official control from April 1983, or before, when items from the hoard were removed for the Weeton army camp conspiracy to bomb mission. Is this the reason why it was deemed an easy forfeit to make a telling point in October 1983?" The basis for these conclusions was my learning of the Weeton operation through the Thomas Maguire Old Bailey trial in September 1986; this coupled with happenings in west Cork at the time of Weeton events, which I believe had connection. Research and disclosure of more recent years has further amplified those perceptions.

The pattern set in IRA operations A, B and C above would subsequently be broken after operation D. Apart from wishing to communicate a proxy message through the disclosure of the Pangbourne hoard, was something else alive to make it dispensable and allow it 24 hours after a facilitated discovery to enter the public arena on 27 October 1983?

Do we have two possible answers to the question? Could it be that after the Lancashire chase-out of the IRA duo in April 1983, a chastened IRA wrote off the Pangbourne cache because they deemed it dodgy (possibly compromised)? Could it be that the authorities, in facilitating the entry of the cache into the public domain, knew this was so? Also, in facilitating the entry of the Pangbourne cache into the public domain, did the authorities know it had been replaced, or was in the throes of being replaced, by the Salcey Forest and Annesley Forest caches? Was it for these reasons it was used to communicate a proxy message and not in need of extended surveillance?

And so it became, as said, "an easy forfeit to make a telling point in October 1983".


Salcey Forest & Annesley Forest (IRA Arms Caches)



Rather than dwell on the interesting permutations as to how the authorities came to know of the above replacements for the Pangbourne arms dump, let us see what we can find out about them. Not a lot, I am afraid. You see, MI5 do not want us to know. They have wiped the slate clean on that one with the blood of those killed and injured in the Harrods bombing. They do not wish their culpability for the bombing to be known.

Less the removal of one long-delay timer, thought to have been subsequently used in the Brighton Grand Hotel bombing in October 1984, the combined use of the Salcey Forest and Annesley Forest caches are put down to four IRA London bombings in December 1983: Saturday 10 (Woolwich Barracks); Tuesday 13, (Kensington High Street); Saturday 17 (Harrods); Christmas Day, Sunday 25, (Oxford Street).

If the IRA wrote off the Pangbourne cache, the Security Service, knowing about it, could do likewise by arranging for it to be chance found at a fortuitous tactical moment. If the republican movement could be duped by the supposed chance find of Pangbourne at end October 1983, it would be pushing the limits of plausibility to expose the Salcey Forest and Annesley Forest caches in the few weeks before the advent of the December 1983 bombings. Doing that would provoke questions to be asked by the IRA, like: "How?” –  “Who?" Not doing so allowed the IRA active service unit an unchallenged freedom to carry out the Harrods bombing on Saturday 17 December 1983.

The non arrest of the active service unit was a grant of licence. A bombing that could have been prevented was not. It is said the IRA gave an inadequate telephone fore-warning and the bomb went off during the police clearing operation, resulting in six deaths, including three police officers, and many more injured, some very seriously. It was an incalculable consequence of the security services acting out their deadly game of judicious management of IRA operations. Harrods was a tragedy that need never have happened.

What then do we know about the Salcey Forest and Annesley Forest arms caches? To find out we go to reports of an edited statement made by Natalino Vella as read by the trial judge at the Old Bailey court in March 1985. Mr. Vella pleaded guilty to the charge of acting as an IRA quartermaster in that he transferred explosive and bomb making equipment from Ireland to England, and so was not subject to a trial.

That is sadly all too convenient. We do not know when the Salcey Forest and Annesley Forest caches were bedded down because there was no trial for Mr. Vella. Though all the participants in the Harrods and other December 1983 London bombings, the full IRA active service unit, will have been known of from the outset, and too the two named Pangbourne replacement caches used in the bombings, no charges have been brought for the explosions. So again, conveniently, we are blind as to when the Salcey Forest and Annesley Forest caches were first mooted, transported, and deposited into the earth across the water.

Short of obtaining information from the IRA, which I have not to date, one is left with what is on public record. As already said, not a lot.

The Daily Telegraph, Wednesday 14.02.85 (?) – “(Mr. Roy Amlot, prosecuting) said that following the seizure (of the Pangbourne arms cache) it seemed the bombmaking materials were very quickly replaced (my italics) because in January (1984) a second terrorist cache was discovered split into buried dustbins in Salcey Forest in Northamptonshire and Annesley Forest in Nottinghamshire."

Undoubtedly Mr. Amlot could have been more forthcoming than saying "it seemed"; but he could argue he was professionally obliged to be economical with the actualité. So the ambiguity continued. Perhaps we could expect more precision when Natalino Vella, who was involved in the transfer of munitions from Ireland to England, was being sentenced and the trial judge would indicate reasons for formulating sentence?

The Belfast Telegraph, Friday 08.03.85 – “(Mr. Justice McCowan) read extracts from the statement Vella made to the police in which he admitted that he was in charge of material intended for use in further bombing campaigns on the British mainland." The ambiguity continued.

Maybe if I looked harder I would find precision? Well I trawled the Daily Telegraph, the Times, the Irish Independent, the Irish Press, the (Belfast) News Letter, the Belfast Telegraph, the (Belfast) Irish News, and found no mention of when the Salcey Forest and Annesley Forest stores, in one or more lots, were transferred from Ireland to England. Then I looked in the Guardian.

The Guardian, Friday 08.03.85 – (Page 1. By Paul Keel) "(Vella) had admitted in helping the shipment of the arms and explosives from the Irish Republic in November (1983) to replace (the Pangbourne) arms dump which had been discovered by police (at end October 1983)." If that was read out in court no one else saw fit to print it, that I know of. It may have been given to the journalist by security sources.

I don't know. And because Mr. Vella pleaded guilty and, unfortunately, no one has been charged for the Harrods bombing, you don't know.

If the report is true, that is some going. TNT could hardly have done it quicker. It implies that within days, inside one month from public disclosure, the Pangbourne woodland hoard was replaced by the Salcey Forest and Annesley Forest caches. Being an illegal organisation the IRA must of necessity do everything by stealth and with circumspection, subjecting its every move to restock to stage by stage prudent procedures. The needs of the England department negotiated with the quartermaster’s department. Requirements defined and sourced. Personnel, transport, interim storage, the hire of a trawler, the transport of stores to an IRA unit in England, all worked out and put into effect. Only on the successful execution of these management functions could the materiel be conveyed to the two pre-determined burial spots in the English countryside, each a long way from the other. So does one take the report as read? If prudence prevails, the ambiguity remains.

The Daily Telegraph, Friday 08.03.85 – “(Vella) told detectives he was an IRA quartermaster whose job had been to collect explosives and other equipment to be sent to Britain for the 1983 bombing campaign. The materials were smuggled into Britain by trawler, he said."

Were these specific stores (transported over the water in October-November) for an imminent bombing campaign (Christmas period 1983) or was it replacement materiel (brought in before October 1983) for a planned future (Christmas period) campaign? The ambiguity again.

(In textual terms is not official Britain, in its use of language, capable of peeling an orange in its pocket?)

A clue to that looked for might be contained in the reading of the charges brought against Paul Kavanagh. Confining ourselves to the arms and explosive caches.

The Daily Telegraph, Wednesday 14.02.85 (Believed date) – “(Kavanagh and Quigley are) charged with possession between August 1981 and October 1983 of explosives and firearms with intent to endanger life (the Pangbourne cache).

"Kavanagh alone faces two further charges of possession between October 1983 and January 1984 of explosives, firearms and ammunition with intent to endanger life (the Salcey Forest and Annesley Forest caches)."

Do the latter Paul Kavanagh charges suggest legal dovetailing or omission? Are they saying the Salcey Forest and Annesley Forest caches were in existence before the earlier given November 1983 date? The charge says "October 1983". Or is October 1983 a convenient slot-in with the end life of the Pangbourne hoard to disguise knowledge of the prior laying down of the Salcey Forest and Annesley Forest caches?

(We know the Pangbourne cache was in existence before the "August 1981" charge date. Could it be a Freudian slip in that it accurately reflects the initial involvement of Kavanagh and Quigley with the hoard, a consideration not inconsistent with the claim in Seán O’Callaghan’s book, The Informer, that a consignment of stores was transported from County Kerry to an IRA team in England in early October 1981? There may have been more than one shuttle from Kerry, or elsewhere, at the time. A newspaper found in the hoard was dated September 1981. For stocktaking or other reasons the IRA might have visited the cache in August 1981. The bombings began on 10 October 1981.)

Whatever the ambiguity as to when the Salcey Forest and Annesley Forest dumps had their origins, the fact of their laying down being known to the respective authorities from the outset is, I am confident, not subject to ambiguity. The hiding of this fact is the author of the ambiguity.

Because of the trial of Paul Kavanagh, selective though the court presentation was, we at least know some part of the supposed Pangbourne discovery. Let's examine what we have been told.


The Irish Times, Friday 08.03.85 – “The trail linking Kavanagh with the Pangbourne cache had gone cold until the arrival in Britain of an IRA quartermaster, Natalino Vella, of Knockmore Avenue, Tallaght, Dublin, on January 15th (1984). During committal proceedings, a Special Branch officer, Detective Inspector Dwyer, said that Vella had been under surveillance in Dublin and a full scale surveillance team of 17 men were briefed to follow him at Heathrow airport, London.

"Vella led the police to Kavanagh on January 16th, 1984, and over the next day the surveillance team followed the two men and two other suspects as they drove in a white Rover car to the snow-covered forest of Annesley, Nottinghamshire, and Salcey Forest, Northamptonshire.

"The Rover driver made sudden changes in direction, but the police vehicles avoided detection. The car stopped twice, once in Salcey, and then in Annesley Forest. On both occasions two men left the car and walked into the forest and returned three quarters of an hour later. Two separate IRA hoards of arms, ammunition and explosives were found in a police search eight days later."

Other reports confirm it was Vella and Kavanagh who got out of the car. It was also said that "Police later lost trace of the car, a white Rover, which was found abandoned at Duffield, Derbyshire. It had traces of explosives inside." Heed not that got lost bit. If the state presentation wants a fade out from their story telling, people or cars disappear. By the lie they avoid embarrassing disclosure. The cars used by the IRA, at least two, almost certainly had tracking devices fitted. Even without them a white Rover is a poorly camouflaged vehicle. And, besides, Vella and Kavanagh met up not once but twice on that 1984 trip, once in London on January 16, and in Northampton on January 17. Each day they were under watch. The surveillance team for Vella didn’t lose him. You can be confident the surveillance team for Kavanagh and the other active service unit members were no less competent. They had, after all, been on the job for more than two months at the time.

Knowing who were the "two other suspects" in the car with Vella and Kavanagh might explain, in part, why the white Rover got lost.


The News Letter, Friday 08.03.85 – "A police undercover squad came close to capturing the 'blonde bomber' – Evelyn Glenholmes – who is wanted in connection with IRA bomb attacks in London and Brighton.

"Evelyn Glenholmes, 28, from Belfast, is thought to have been a passenger in a white Rover car which was being followed by undercover agents from Scotland Yard in (January 1984). Police knew the car contained Paul Kavanagh who was jailed for life at the Old Bailey for IRA murders in London.

"They believed two other people in the car were among the most wanted terrorists in Britain – one of them they say was Evelyn Glenholmes."

The Observer, Sunday 15.06.86 – “Security sources claim that they can trace much of (Patrick Magee's) career. They suspect he played a leading role in Bloody Sunday in 1972, when dozens of shoppers in Belfast city centre were hit without warning by a series of devastating explosions. The sources say that in the mid-1970's he was given special training by Middle Eastern terrorist groups, who had been contacted by the IRA's new head of operations, Brian Keenan, and that he was sent on at least two mainland missions before the Brighton bombing – including, it is claimed, the attack on Harrods in December 1983."

So, were the "two other people in the car" Evelyn Glenholmes and Patrick Magee?


Natalino Vella "had been under surveillance in Dublin" before flying to London on 15 January 1984 "where a.….surveillance team of 17 men were briefed to follow him" after arrival in the English capital. The following day, the 16th, Vella met Paul Kavanagh in London. On Wednesday 17th, they met up again in Northampton and in a white Rover car, visited Salcey Forest and Annesley Forest to inspect arms and explosive caches. On Thursday 18th Vella flew back to Dublin.

If Vella was subject to surveillance in Dublin before going over to England to meet up with Paul Kavanagh, he was likely under surveillance for some time previous. The authorities evidently knew of Vella's republican attachment: he is said to have been inducted into the IRA in October 1982. If he was under surveillance in January 1984, it would be reasonable to deduce he was, for the same reasons, under surveillance in the preceding months – during the time he was said to have transferred explosive and bomb making equipment from Ireland to Britain “for the 1983 bombing campaign”. Given the amount of material involved, and the two widely apart storage sites, it might suggest he boated the Irish Sea more than once that year.

"Vella was the quartermaster who had supplied explosives and arms for the (IRA's) 1983 campaign..." – The Irish Press, Friday 08.03.85.

We can say with certainty that Mr. Vella was under surveillance before, during and after his January 1984 trip to London. I am confident the  intelligence on Vella was as good when he was quartermastering explosive and other material that became the Salcey Forest and Annesley Forest caches, which – like Pangbourne – will have been known of from the outset. Juxtaposing the intelligence based discoveries of Salcey Forest/Annesley Forest and, their successors, Delamere Forest/Macclesfield Forest, with the supposedly chance found Pangbourne dump, as said earlier: "Pangbourne was no different. A common thread runs through all of them." That common thread was, I believe, reeled out from within the IRA in Dublin.

To protect and sustain informers within the IRA, the authorities spin a yarn about how they came by dint of detective work or luck to discover arms caches. Pangbourne, October 1983, was declared to be a chance discovery. Salcey and Annesley, in January 1984, and Delamere and Macclesfield, in February 1987, had fall-guys. Expendable people set-up to give the game away at opportune moments. At least with the Macclesfield Forest and Delamere Forest caches, MI5 learned the lesson of the Harrods bombing and had two expendables arrested after the laying down, thus pre-empting its use in an operation.

By this remove, informer sources inside the IRA's England department, and beyond, are shielded from suspicion. If by camouflage and lies informers are protected, so too are Special Branch and MI5. Innocent people pay the price.

The deaths, maiming, and millions of pounds in property damage, was only part of the price of withholding on the compromised status of the Pangbourne hoard. Add to that the consequences of awaiting the opportunity to plausibly interdict the Pangbourne replacements of Salcey Forest and Annesley Forest – the Harrods bombing, and the removal of a long delay timer said to have been used in the Brighton bombing. And the people who were not arrested, allowing them to take part in future actions, like the Brighton Grand Hotel bombing.

Historically speaking diabolical minds created the situation. Historically speaking the same minds prolonged the situation. Historically speaking minds like that are obscene. Even more obscene is the acquiescence of the democratic process which makes it possible.

The whereabouts of the IRA team that carried out the December 1983 London bombings will have been known in advance of the Harrods bombing. The location of the stores that fed the Harrods bombing known. The team's whereabouts after the Harrods bombing known. The identities of those involved, including the three in the white Rover (and elsewhere) known. Yet they were not arrested. Why? That old refrain: operational intelligence reasons – the unspoken justification for allowing such actions.

Licence to kill.


The despatch of Natalino Vella from Dublin to London was a tailor-made opportunity for the security services to plausibly disclose that already known to them without attracting the suspicion of the IRA – the republican element of it, that is – the location of the Salcey Forest/Annesley Forest arms hoards. An early uncovering would at least preclude a possible repeat of the agony of Harrods.

After the visit to Salcey Forest and Annesley Forest by Vella and Kavanagh the police did not rush their gates. What if they made immediate forest entry to excavate the munitions and the IRA returned to them? It was an unnecessary risk. Better the active service unit return to Ireland first? Isn't that what happened?

"The (Salcey Forest and Annesley Forest) hoards of arms, ammunition and explosives were found in a police search eight days later." – The Irish Times, Friday 08.03.85.

(Five months further into 1984 – 18 June, Natalino Vella was arrested on re-entering England.)

To this day the dignity of truth has not been afforded to the dead and injured of Harrods and their loved ones. It is a microcosm of much else that happened in Ireland and Britain over the last thirty five years of the Troubles. Crimes made possible by politicians and done in the name of the people, for which no one has been called to account. Wilful murder by grant of privilege and silence and an easy facilitation to disinform by the many friends of secret state in the media who lie by subscription and omission.

Unseen the war machine is capable of killing off more than the truth.

 

Postscripts

1) The Guardian, Wednesday 08.10.86 – (Report at end of Thomas Maguire trial.) “Patrick Magee and a man called Patrick Murray were both named in the indictment, but were not in the dock. The Attorney-General decided that Magee would not be tried since he is already serving five life sentences for the bomb attack on the Grand Hotel in Brighton.

“Murray is now living in Dublin and, although there is a warrant out for his arrest, no attempt, has been made to extradite him. In June he was filmed by the BBC in a Dublin street. The Director of Public Prosecutions has refused to say why his extradition has not been sought.”

Patrick Murray was arrested in France in July 1989 and was subsequently extradited to Germany to face charges there. While in French custody there was no attempt to extradite him to Britain. After his transfer to Germany, there was no attempt to extradite him to Britain.

2) Hypotheses apart – re. the 22 June 1985 Glasgow arrests of Patrick Magee and others. Disclosure in Phoenix – Policing the Shadows confirms the resorts bombing project was compromised, dead in the water, for at least four weeks before arrests. Yet again an IRA operation subject to judicious management by state agencies. Were the delayed arrests down to awaiting the right window of opportunity?

Quoting from Phoenix – Policing the Shadows, page 124 (see corroborative section item number 11): “The trail which led to the Brighton bomber began in the second week of May 1985, in what was codenamed Operation Drain. Police had intimations that another English bombing campaign was in preparation….On 20 May (my emphasis) Phoenix along with five others – an E4A sergeant and four of his unit’s detective constables hurriedly prepared to leave for Scotland. Because of the urgency of the situation, he did not go through ordinary RUC channels for providing transport, and hired two cars himself. He called into his home on the way to the boat, hastily grabbed an overnight bag, kissed Susan, patted the dogs, and left his wife standing somewhat bemusedly at the door. She waved goodbye to the retreating cars as the tyres spun on the drive.”

Yet another security based report said Magee was in Britain for two months before his Glasgow arrest.

The story of the interregnum and the hiatus? A return to pre-Brighton normality? Was a pup bought and sold?

3) In Section 5 of this compilation is a reference to the number of times it was suggested I should buy a boarding house in Bournemouth. Like two subsequent attempts to tease on a move to the Lancashire area, also made in 1984, the belief is that these had to do with the Security Service knowing of an IRA interest to bomb a Conservative Party conference.

I had a former historic connection with the Blackpool area, being three times stationed at nearby Royal Air Force Weeton. The push to set up a business in Bournemouth long puzzled me. As remarked in Section 5: “I always felt the suggestion (to buy a guest house in Bournemouth) had an ulterior motive. The repetition of Bournemouth seemed extraordinary. I had never been there. I had no known connections there. I never expressed a wish to go there. I had no desire to own a boarding house. And why specifically Bournemouth?”

Was it in 1998 I got the answer? Yes, there was somebody in Bournemouth who would know me. In time I was even sussed to see if I had made the connection.

It is indeed a small world. One made smaller and even more foul by the security services and their friends.

4) The Guardian, Thursday 12.06.86 – “Twice in the previous four years, when he was wanted by the English police, (Magee) could have been detained and charged. In 1983, Special Branch officers in the north of England were secretly watching him and taking surveillance photographs. In 1981 his whereabouts in Dublin were known and publicised in the local press after a shooting incident in which he lost a finger.”

The above report had no need to include the Dublin domicile of Magee as a place where his arrest was possible. The respective security services knew of Magee’s Dublin residence for years before his 22 June 1985 arrest in Glasgow. Furthermore, in addition to the opportunity to arrest Magee while on the Weeton operation (April 1983), his arrest was possible on not less than three other occasions in England prior to the Grand Hotel bombing in October 1984. One opportunity goes back to end year 1978.

Magee and others were allowed their freedom for operational intelligence reasons.

5) In October 1984 the IRA bombed the Grand Hotel in Brighton. An act made possible by the Security Service – MI5.


END.

 


Next: State Murder 3 Section 8