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HIA Inquiry Transcript Day Day 222 HIA Inquiry 7 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 Thursday, 7th July 2016 20 commencing at 9.30 am 21 (Day 222) 22 23 MS CHRISTINE SMITH, QC and MR JOSEPH AIKEN appeared as 24 Counsel to the Inquiry. 25 Page 1 www.DTIGlobal.com Day 222 HIA Inquiry 7 July 2016 1 Thursday, 7th July 2016 2 (9.30 am) 3 Material relating to MoD and RUC 4 dealt with by COUNSEL TO THE INQUIRY (cont.) 5 CHAIRMAN: Good morning, ladies and gentlemen. As always, 6 please ensure if you have a mobile phone it has been 7 turned off, and I must remind you that no photography is 8 permitted in the chamber or anywhere else. 9 Yes, Mr Aiken. 10 MR AIKEN: Chairman, Members of the Panel, good morning. 11 Day 222 of our public hearings. We finished last 12 evening. I was looking at one of the central 13 allegations made by Colin Wallace that in 1973 the Army 14 had decided through him to in a nuanced way to reveal to 15 journalists that there was a problem in Kincora and that 16 that would prompt a journalistic investigation into it. 17 We looked at a number of journalists already in that 18 regard. I am going to pick that up and continue until 19 about 10.15 when we are going to prepare for Major C to 20 give his evidence and then I will return to the material 21 as well as summarising a number of further statements 22 that the Inquiry has received before we finish today. 23 I had dealt with David Blundy and David McKittrick 24 and what they had to say. You will recall David 25 McKittrick pointing out that he interviewed Colin Page 2 www.DTIGlobal.com Day 222 HIA Inquiry 7 July 2016 1 Wallace extensively in 1979 on Army affairs. There was 2 no mention of Kincora. 3 Kevin Dowling was spoken to by the RUC on 30th 4 March 1982. Can we bring up, please, 30086? He 5 explained his involvement in articles that he wrote in 6 1982 and he produced to the police the document -- we 7 just scroll through the three pages and I am just going 8 to summarise -- he produced to the police a document 9 that he said was a telex of information he sent to 10 London in the '70s as a result of the conversations he 11 had had. If we just pause there, you can see on the 12 screen: 13 "This information was given by Mr Colin Wallace, 14 then working in the Army's Information Policy unit at 15 Lisburn in 1973." 16 We can see that document at 30230, please. You will 17 see that it's very difficult to read. It's a telex, and 18 you can get the gist of it, but there is thankfully 19 a typed version that's easier to read. If we scroll 20 through to the next page, please: 21 "According to my Army source", that's Colin Wallace, 22 "its CO is William McGrath, a homosexual, whose 23 boyfriend is Tara's Intelligence officer, Clifford 24 Smyth, of the same address." 25 So you can see the smearing exercise: Page 3 www.DTIGlobal.com Day 222 HIA Inquiry 7 July 2016 1 "McGrath apparently uses a non-existent evangelical 2 mission as a front to entice young Protestant men into 3 homosexuality. Once in they are potential blackmail 4 victims and soldiers of Tara. My source says McGrath is 5 a known Communist who before the Troubles started 6 attended several meeting in Dublin with Eastern block 7 ..." 8 You can see he goes on to talk about David Browne, 9 Frank Miller. Scroll on to the next page, please. Then 10 you can see the 50p subscription you will recognise. 11 Then: 12 "My Army source says Paisley and Sir Knox Cunningham 13 have been told of this situation and warned about the 14 possible danger of associating with this man, but they 15 continue to do so." 16 You can see he is recording information briefing by 17 Wallace in 1973. Of course, the point that comes out of 18 that again, Members of the Panel, no mention of Kincora. 19 Conor O'Cleary was spoken to. He was abroad during 20 the Phase Three police Inquiry, but he was available 21 during the Phase Four Inquiry. If we look, please, at 22 51105, he was the Northern editor of the Irish Times 23 between '73 and 76. Superintendent Caskey spoke to him 24 in September 1985. You can see he says: 25 "I regarded him as a Ministry of Defence press Page 4 www.DTIGlobal.com Day 222 HIA Inquiry 7 July 2016 1 officer. I met him occasionally." 2 That is Colin Wallace: 3 "I have no specific recollection of discussing 4 McGrath with Colin Wallace. I have no recollection of 5 discussing with Wallace the murder of Brian McDermott." 6 He has no recollection of the briefing. 7 Jim Campbell was another journalist who was named. 8 He was spoken to. If we look at 30081, in March 1982 by 9 September Caskey. He dealt with a number of matters, 10 but it is the -- if we scroll down, please towards the 11 bottom -- yes. 12 "I do know that these original documents were 13 received by me in the mid '70s through the post. Colin 14 Wallace told me by telephone that he was sending them to 15 me. I believe that Colin Wallace was the author of both 16 documents." 17 You can see what document he is referring to. He is 18 referring to the folio document. Now Colin Wallace 19 would say at interview that he wasn't the author of the 20 folio document, that he believed it came from the NIO, 21 but you can see here that it's being disseminated and 22 that's the document that makes all sorts of allegations 23 about politicians that seem to first emanate in 1976. 24 CHAIRMAN: Just one moment. So what Mr Campbell is saying is 25 whether or not the folio document was created by Page 5 www.DTIGlobal.com Day 222 HIA Inquiry 7 July 2016 1 Mr Wallace, Mr Wallace certainly was one of those who 2 disseminated it to a number of journalists, one of whom 3 was Mr Campbell himself, and that it was Mr Wallace who 4 drew Mr Campbell's attention to the information that was 5 in the folio document. 6 MR AIKEN: Yes. 7 CHAIRMAN: Although when he wrote in his article of 28th 8 February 1982, he had an additional document from 9 Mr Wallace, which had some additional information in it, 10 but none of the information that he received in whatever 11 fashion he received it from Mr Wallace made any 12 reference to abuse of children in Kincora. 13 MR AIKEN: Yes. The second document he's referring to he 14 may not have received it from Colin Wallace. It was 15 an augmented or revised version of folio, as it were, 16 and he may have got it in a different way, but the point 17 you have just said, Chairman, for our purposes is yes, 18 there is nothing in what Jim McCormick has to say to 19 suggest he was ever told anything about Kincora. There 20 was simply no mention of it. In the -- 21 CHAIRMAN: If we just pause at this point to review what you 22 said yesterday. The position, therefore, would appear 23 to be from material placed before us yesterday and today 24 that Colin Wallace has asserted at various times 25 subsequently that in the 1970s he spoke to a number of Page 6 www.DTIGlobal.com Day 222 HIA Inquiry 7 July 2016 1 journalists and not merely hinted at the existence of 2 a problem in Kincora but pointing out that McGrath was 3 a homosexual and therefore anybody could have made the 4 next jump, which was that if he is working at a boys' 5 home, there is at least a chance that he is interfering 6 with children, something which the Army knew, but wanted 7 to put into the public domain in this indirect way, but 8 that he went further than that and he has on a number of 9 occasions identified specific journalists as amongst 10 those, or only those perhaps, we don't know -- but 11 certainly amongst those to whom he spoke, and where the 12 names of journalists were interviewed by the police, 13 each one, not just one of them, but each one of them has 14 said that they were not given any such information or 15 have no recollection of ever being given such 16 information, information the nature of which if, as 17 Mr Wallace has asserted, was given by him in the 1970s, 18 was, to put it in as neutral a way as possible, 19 extremely interesting to a journalist and one might 20 characterise it in more extreme ways as being 21 potentially sensational or whatever. 22 MR AIKEN: Yes. In fairness to Mr Wallace he in giving his 23 accounts, and one is left with the impression therefore 24 he was telling them about assaults in Kincora, slightly 25 more nuanced from him in that he says "We weren't Page 7 www.DTIGlobal.com Day 222 HIA Inquiry 7 July 2016 1 drawing specific attention to assaults taking place in 2 Kincora", but as you saw from the Argus reporting, the 3 Argus reporting, he said that any journalist with an IQ 4 of more than 4 would have understood what I was trying 5 to tell them.
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