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HIA Inquiry Day 220 Transcript

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Day 220 HIA Inquiry 5 July 2016 1 2 3 - - - - - - - - - - 4 5 HISTORICAL INSTITUTIONAL ABUSE INQUIRY 6 7 - - - - - - - - - - 8 9 being heard before: 10 11 SIR ANTHONY HART (Chairman) 12 MR DAVID LANE 13 MS GERALDINE DOHERTY 14 15 held at 16 Banbridge Court House 17 Banbridge 18 19 on Tuesday, 5th July 2016 20 commencing at 9.30 am 21 (Day 220) 22 23 MS CHRISTINE SMITH, QC and MR JOSEPH AIKEN appeared as 24 Counsel to the Inquiry. 25 Page 1 www.DTIGlobal.com Day 220 HIA Inquiry 5 July 2016 1 Tuesday, 5th July 2016 2 (9.30 am) 3 (Proceedings delayed) 4 (10.30 am) 5 Material relating to MoD and RUC dealt with 6 by Counsel to the Inquiry 7 CHAIRMAN: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. Sorry we are 8 rather late in starting but we had some unexpected 9 difficulties with the equipment which we hope have now 10 been resolved. Can I, as always, remind anyone who has 11 a mobile phone to make sure that it is turned off and 12 also to remind you that no photography is allowed in the 13 chamber or anywhere on the Inquiry premises. 14 Yes, Mr Aiken. 15 MR AIKEN: Chairman, Members of the Panel, good morning. 16 I want to begin this morning by looking at what the Army 17 knew about William McGrath and Kincora. As you are 18 aware, Members of the Panel, I tried to find 19 a relatively contemporaneous summary document post the 20 breaking of the Kincora scandal to try to show you 21 an overview of at least what was being said in the 22 aftermath of the story breaking in the media in 1980. 23 I~am going to show you one such MoD summary, which was 24 prepared around March or April of 1982 by an Army 25 intelligence researcher in HQNI. You will note that Page 2 www.DTIGlobal.com Day 220 HIA Inquiry 5 July 2016 1 that's in and around the time whenever there is also the 2 RUC phase three investigation. 3 What I want to show you first, if we can look at 4 30163, this intelligence researcher explained to 5 Inspector Cooke n behalf of Detective Superintendent 6 Caskey what he had been asked to do, what he had been 7 asked to do by the Army in his police statement of 20th 8 December 1982. He says: 9 "I am the joint intelligence research officer 10 attached to the G2 branch at HQNI. My job is to prepare 11 studies and papers for G2 branch on all aspects of 12 intelligence in relation to Northern Ireland. I have 13 been shown a report", which we will look at shortly, "by 14 Inspector Cooke. This I a report prepared by me in 15 March/April 1982 for Colonel Westropp who was head of G2 16 branch. The information contained in this report was 17 obtained from a single file headed "Tara 5523/6." 18 I will ask you to note that reference, because we 19 will see that throughout the day. I believe we will 20 establish that is the HQNI Tara file. He explains: 21 "My report was based mainly on documents which I now 22 see marked SWJS1, 2, 10 and 11." 23 Now if I can just explain, we will see later in the 24 day that a Major Saunders, whose surname being S as the 25 fourth initial, produced 11 documents ultimately to the Page 3 www.DTIGlobal.com Day 220 HIA Inquiry 5 July 2016 1 Caskey Inquiry and those documents are being shown to Mr 2 Noakes, who wrote the report we are about to look at. 3 He is identifying that his report was based mainly on 4 four of the documents that are being shown to him, 5 numbers 1, 2, 10 and 11. 6 "The reason for the request to prepare this paper 7 was that G2 branch's interest in contemporary newspaper 8 reports of the implications of the Kincora affair on the 9 Northern Ireland scene. The branch were interested in 10 the possible impact of the affair on Loyalist 11 politicians and paramilitaries. In the course of 12 preparing this paper I consulted various file lists 13 looking for any reference to Kincora related subjects. 14 The only file I found to be relevant was the one 15 referred to already in this statement." 16 So we can't be sure at this remove what the file 17 lists were that Mr Noakes was looking at, but he's 18 saying, "I was looking for files relating to Kincora," 19 and the only file he found of relevance in the lists he 20 was looking at is that headed "Tara number 5523/6". You 21 can see he says: 22 "I am aware of no other files on this subject and my 23 interest in the Kincora affair and related matters ended 24 shortly after the preparation of my report." 25 As you know, retired or former officers would make Page 4 www.DTIGlobal.com Day 220 HIA Inquiry 5 July 2016 1 claims in the early '90s that there were Kincora files 2 in HQNI during their period, and obviously the person 3 writing this report isn't yet to know that, because 4 that's an allegation not yet made, and he is looking for 5 files to address the question that he's being asked, and 6 this is what he's saying the result of it is. 7 There is ultimately, as we will see, a Kincora file 8 created by Major Saunders in 1982, when he is assisting 9 the Caskey Inquiry, but if I have understood the MoD 10 position correctly, albeit they will be the first to 11 accept they don't any longer have all of the files they 12 may once have had, that as a result of what we are going 13 to look at they don't accept the proposition that there 14 was a file on known abuse at Kincora in HQNI in 1973/74, 15 when some of the retired officers in 1990 would 16 subsequently claim that there was. 17 He says: 18 "I am aware of no other files on this subject and my 19 interest in the Kincora affair and related matters ended 20 shortly after the preparation of my report." 21 Now just to be clear for your note as we go through 22 his report, SWJS1 that he says he consults is the 23 January '76 Halford-MacLeod letter from Lurgan 3 Brigade 24 based, as you know, on sources from UDR Major H , one of 25 whom included Roy Garland, another of which was Page 5 www.DTIGlobal.com Day 220 HIA Inquiry 5 July 2016 1 UDR Captain N . We will be coming back to look at the 2 Halford-MacLeod letter later, but he is saying to you 3 "that's part of what I based my report on". 4 SWJS2 is a 1974 source report from an Army source 5 called Brazil Nut. We will look at that later in the 6 day. He is saying, "I had access to that as far as it 7 talks about Tara". 8 SWJS10 is a January 1977 MIONI, which is a summary 9 document that's come from the police, as to the position 10 in respect of Tara. 11 Then SWJS11 and we will see the sequence of how 12 that's produced, is a letter of 6th July 1974 from 13 Major C, as he is now known before us for the moment, 14 who was in the G INT Intelligence Section looking at 15 Loyalist paramilitaries and Loyalist activity in HQNI, 16 and we have a statement, as you know, from Major C that 17 I will be referring to as we go. 18 So if we can look then at Mr Noakes' report, having 19 given you what I hope will assist in understanding what 20 we are about to see, if we look at 30318, please, if we 21 can just scroll up on to the page before. Yes. Keep 22 going up for me, please. Up one more. My apologies. 23 We begin at 30316 and it runs to 30318. So it begins: 24 "Kincora. 25 General. Page 6 www.DTIGlobal.com Day 220 HIA Inquiry 5 July 2016 1 On 16 December 1981 William McGrath and two others 2 (probably irrelevant in this context), which were Mains 3 and Semple, "were convicted of buggery-related offences. 4 The trial followed allegations made in 1980 by The Irish 5 Independent and Gerry Fitt about incidents at the 6 Kincora Boys' Home. 7 That much is known. However, speculation continues 8 that there is much more to the affair than has so far 9 emerged. This has led to the setting up of a private 10 enquiry by the Government." 11 So that seems to be the reference to the McGonagle 12 Inquiry: 13 "Allegations made fall into two categories: that the 14 situation at Kincora was known much earlier, but nothing 15 done; and that there has been a cover-up which has 16 blocked investigations. (Even now the private enquiry 17 was only to have been into the social welfare aspects of 18 the case. The RUC is investigating possible further 19 criminal proceedings)." 20 You are aware that throughout the material that 21 postdates the scandal coming to light there are major 22 debates that go on over what form an Inquiry should 23 take, who should be involved in it, what should be 24 investigated and as a result much time spent arguing 25 over that issue and ultimately ending up with the Hughes Page 7 www.DTIGlobal.com Day 220 HIA Inquiry 5 July 2016 1 Inquiry, which is looking just at the Social Services' 2 aspect.
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