Once Upon a Time in Northern Ireland BBC Documentary sub English episode 4
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00:00:00Do you want me to turn the lights off?
00:00:15Yep.
00:00:17There you go.
00:00:23Hello.
00:00:26I'm still very anxious that we're not far enough past the troubles and stuff like that to be coming on camera.
00:00:37But I think, really and truly, today there's a different climate.
00:00:42So, hopefully, only good will come out of this.
00:00:47OK. So, we go to the beginning.
00:01:05My name's Denise and I live on an interface in East Belfast.
00:01:14Is that what an interface is, where you've got the Protestants here, where you live, and then the Catholics?
00:01:19Yeah, the Catholics on the other side.
00:01:21And what's the gap between the two communities?
00:01:24Yard. I mean, the width of the street.
00:01:28It was just literally that side of the wall you don't go, this side of the wall you do.
00:01:40So, here we are at the back. This is Bryson Street.
00:01:42Now, I would not have gone past this stage. This was me, finished, you know.
00:01:47That side's still Protestant, but this side isn't.
00:01:51So, this is where I would not want to break down.
00:01:55This is us. There's the back of the peaceful.
00:01:58So, that's our house in there.
00:02:01Does this feel like a new territory?
00:02:03Yeah. A hundred percent.
00:02:05Well, you know, well, maybe not. I don't know.
00:02:11I feel, like, my hands feel sweaty. I just don't enjoy being here.
00:02:22I completely, I don't want to go any further because I don't know how to get out.
00:02:26So, I know I can get out back there. So, I'll just do a U-turn and go.
00:02:33Oh, there's somebody behind me.
00:02:36Right. I'll just go because I don't want to be caught.
00:02:46It's funny I'm saying I don't want to be caught out, but I mean caught out at what?
00:02:49This is where I don't quite understand my emotions.
00:02:56What I always felt as a child growing up was I felt that I wanted to just be normal.
00:03:01I wanted to just be like everybody else.
00:03:04And we couldn't. We weren't like everybody else.
00:03:08Because we had this secret in our family.
00:03:14Our life was living a lie all of the time about who you were, what your mum worked at.
00:03:25Constantly wondering who would tell who, who would know who.
00:03:30Something happened to mummy. Was it my fault? Did I say something? Did I slip up?
00:03:47I remember every day before we would get in the car, me and my brother and my mummy,
00:03:54we would have to check underneath the wheel rims for bombs.
00:03:59Now, we quite often would check it as the three of us.
00:04:03You know, mummy would do like the front and we'd do the wheels and somebody do the back, you know.
00:04:08But if mum felt, I mean, it's kind of like those gut feelings, if she felt there was something not right,
00:04:15even with the checks, mummy would have got in the car.
00:04:22And turn the engine on, because that would trigger something.
00:04:26And we would be well back at the house, you know.
00:04:30Every morning, your mum...
00:04:32Every morning, every single morning.
00:04:34Would play Russian Roulette.
00:04:36Yeah. You know, I mean, it sounds like fiction. It sounds like it's made up.
00:04:42But it was just become a way of life, you know.
00:04:52How are you?
00:05:10I'm great. There was a big leather chair not available.
00:05:15My arse is pretty numb already.
00:05:19Is that an uncomfortable chair?
00:05:21It is an uncomfortable one.
00:05:23No, it's fine.
00:05:31How does this feel for you now, in here?
00:05:33Oh, that's fine.
00:05:34Yeah?
00:05:35That's fine.
00:05:36Are you happy with the lights?
00:05:37Yes.
00:05:38I'm fine with the lights, yeah.
00:05:40And why can't you show your face?
00:05:42It would be very naive of me to spend all my life dealing with terrorist organisations
00:05:48and not think there's people out there who would probably want to kill me.
00:05:54So I'm not going to put my life on the line like that.
00:05:58But yes, I was 32 years in the police and 30 of those were in Special Branch.
00:06:04So I know a little bit about things.
00:06:18They were still going full tilt at that stage, weren't they, you know, in the 80s?
00:06:28Republican bombings and loyalist shootings and just daily tit for tat.
00:06:35It was down to us in Special Branch to find out who was a threat to national security,
00:06:40who were in paramilitary organisations and what can we do to infiltrate those organisations and stop them.
00:06:50That was the job?
00:06:52That was the job, yes.
00:06:57But it was never easy.
00:07:01A car bomb at Harrods in central London kills nine people.
00:07:05In Hyde Park, a car bomb packed with nails exploded into a troop of household cavalry.
00:07:10The guards were just standing there, bewildered, just shouting,
00:07:14Bastards.
00:07:16Bastards.
00:07:18I think the IRA realised they could bomb Northern Ireland all day, seven days a week,
00:07:22and it wasn't going to make much difference to the British government.
00:07:25But maybe they'd listen a bit better if we put a bomb in the centre of London.
00:07:30I mean, they weren't stupid, they weren't daft.
00:07:33They had people there who had brains in their head and could think forward.
00:07:37You don't underestimate them?
00:07:39No. No, I don't.
00:07:42They knew exactly what they were doing.
00:07:46The Irish Republican Army this morning made its most audacious
00:07:50and potentially devastating attack yet on the British government.
00:07:54Just after three o'clock this morning, they attempted to assassinate the Prime Minister,
00:07:59members of her cabinet and other leading Tory politicians
00:08:02as they slept in their beds in a Brighton hotel.
00:08:07You hear about these atrocities, these bombs, you don't expect them to happen to you.
00:08:15But life must go on, as usual.
00:08:18Thank you, Prime Minister.
00:08:23Do you remember the Brighton bomb?
00:08:25No.
00:08:28Was that the one with the white buildings?
00:08:31I'm trying to think.
00:08:32The one where they try and kill Thatcher.
00:08:34Oh, that, yeah. That one, yeah. Remember that one?
00:08:37Sorry.
00:08:41Yeah.
00:08:45Pity they didn't get her.
00:08:46What?
00:08:47Pity they didn't get her.
00:08:49Despise that one.
00:08:52My name's Anne-Marie McKee.
00:08:54I'm a Republican ex-prisoner and mother of eight children.
00:09:01That should be all my gravestone.
00:09:06I wasn't your normal teenager.
00:09:12You know, everybody had Wham on their rooms and, you know, all their pop idols
00:09:19where mine was IRA men, fucking tricolours hanging from the ceiling.
00:09:29See, when there was a new poster out, Republican movement, I went and bought it.
00:09:33Room, you couldn't see my room.
00:09:39I really looked up to them, you know, they were like heroes to me.
00:09:45So I just watched and learned.
00:10:03That's me.
00:10:07I think I was about 13 or 14 there.
00:10:09I think I was about 13 or 14 there.
00:10:13Not holding a bottle properly.
00:10:23My life just seemed to be what was going on in Ireland, in the Brits.
00:10:28You know, going to marches, protests, just doing something for the struggle.
00:10:35Hit for Hitler! Hit for Hitler!
00:10:38So quite a politically aware, motivated teenager.
00:10:41Yeah. Yeah.
00:10:45You had the IRA and then you had Sinn Féin, you know, and I was young,
00:10:50so I joined Sinn Féin Youth.
00:10:54I learned a lot of the history about Ireland,
00:10:56about things that happened like the Bloody Sunday and the whole social injustice.
00:11:02And the more you educated yourself, you actually became stronger
00:11:07and more passionate through the education of it.
00:11:13Did you also sort of get lectures on, like, Bloody Friday, for example?
00:11:19No. Other IRA atrocities? No.
00:11:24So you were getting a very biased account in one regards?
00:11:27Never at any stage did I feel that I was being brainwashed.
00:11:34Because I'd seen what was going on in my own home.
00:11:36I'd already been through it, seen it.
00:11:38Seen dead children in coffins, people being beaten in the streets,
00:11:42being pulled out of my bed by the British Army.
00:11:44So nobody could tell me any different.
00:11:50You see yourself like the next generation and you wanted to be a part of that.
00:11:55And it was like, sort of, my younger life was actually preparing me for later on, you know.
00:12:06Yeah.
00:12:07Yeah.
00:12:21You can't fight a war against the like of the IRA without intelligence.
00:12:27We needed to know who was in the organisation
00:12:30and who was in command positions in the organisation,
00:12:33who's looking after the weapons and the arms dumps.
00:12:35We need to know that.
00:12:37So you have to have people recruited from within the organisation to deal with that.
00:12:41And that's called an agent, is it?
00:12:43Yes. Agent, source.
00:12:46If you're from the Republican side, you'd call them a tout.
00:12:49And those are obviously the most valuable
00:12:53because they're in at the heart of what's going on.
00:13:03The British government insisted that a dreadful act of terrorism had been prevented
00:13:07when security forces shot dead three Republican paramilitaries on the streets of Gibraltar.
00:13:13At the time they were shot, the suspects were all unarmed.
00:13:17Well, there had to be intelligence to say they were going over there to carry out some sort of an atrocity.
00:13:23I wasn't involved in the actual operation.
00:13:26I'm not privy to what the intelligence was.
00:13:28But let's assume that some of our informants knew exactly what they were going to do and when they were going to do it.
00:13:33And that there was an operation set up to prevent that.
00:13:36And that's what happened.
00:13:41They prevented it.
00:13:42How did they prevent it?
00:13:44They shot dead the three people involved.
00:13:47It began as the families wished, in peace and with dignity.
00:13:51The bodies of the three IRA volunteers shot in Gibraltar
00:13:55were taken from their homes draped in the Irish tricolour
00:13:58and followed by a growing procession of mourners as they moved through West Belfast.
00:14:06Our own families were killed.
00:14:08Our own children were killed.
00:14:11I always went to the marches and the funerals, you know, to show support.
00:14:17But that funeral that day was...
00:14:22You'd never forget that.
00:14:29I remember we were carrying the wreaths.
00:14:32My granny was there too.
00:14:33Well, all the family was there, but I was carrying the wreaths.
00:14:36My granny was there too.
00:14:37Well, all the family was there, but I was carrying the wreaths.
00:14:40We were walking into a graveyard.
00:14:46And we were just standing there.
00:15:07SHRIEKING
00:15:12And then all of a sudden, we heard a banging.
00:15:18And grenades went off.
00:15:29Jesus!
00:15:36SHRIEKING
00:15:42I remember standing up.
00:15:45And at a distance, I could see this man with a dark hair.
00:15:49SHRIEKING
00:15:54They had a gun and they were shooting.
00:15:57Everybody was ducking.
00:16:01It was just... It was chaos.
00:16:06SHRIEKING
00:16:21SHRIEKING
00:16:28SHRIEKING
00:16:31Can people please stay calm?
00:16:34Can people stay with me, all of you?
00:16:36SHRIEKING
00:16:53Never seen so many screaming.
00:16:56And, you know...
00:16:58What one person could do there...
00:17:01Cause chaos for thousands and thousands of people.
00:17:17Oh, Jesus Christ!
00:17:20SHRIEKING
00:17:26That's me there.
00:17:31How old are you there?
00:17:34Erm... I'd been 17.
00:17:38And is that your grandma?
00:17:40Yeah.
00:17:42SCREAMING
00:17:48McGrally's screaming there.
00:17:50That's like an echo.
00:17:52You OK?
00:17:53Yeah. Yeah.
00:17:55MUSIC
00:18:00Michael Anthony Stone, a 32-year-old unemployed builder,
00:18:03appeared in a Belfast magistrate's court this afternoon,
00:18:06charged with the murders of three people
00:18:08in Wednesday's attack at Milltown Cemetery.
00:18:12At the end of the hearing, Stone told police,
00:18:15I alone carried out this military operation
00:18:18as a retaliatory strike against the IRA.
00:18:21I am a dedicated, freelance, loyalist paramilitary.
00:18:25No surrender.
00:18:30Do you feel you were a different person leaving that funeral
00:18:33than the person who arrived? Yeah.
00:18:39I have been never so angry in my life.
00:18:45It just sort of made a permanent print on my head, in my mind.
00:18:51You know, I'm not sitting back and...
00:18:55..you know, I need to do something, need to help in some way.
00:19:00I was that angry.
00:19:06Can I just say this, that at a time of emotion,
00:19:09there obviously will be the thought of revenge and retaliation.
00:19:14If that happens,
00:19:16this mad and awful cycle of killing and murder and violence will go on.
00:19:36Everybody was, like, on alert that day.
00:19:41And tensions were really, really high.
00:19:47I was away on down, down the road, cos the crowds, you know,
00:19:51and I heard there was commotion.
00:19:54Something about, um, there's a car pulled into the crowds.
00:20:10There was a fear in everybody's minds.
00:20:13Was this happening again?
00:20:16Was it a remake of Middletown?
00:20:22But you really didn't know what was going on
00:20:25until you heard afterwards.
00:20:27What did you hear?
00:20:29I just heard that they were two British Army fellas.
00:20:34Get back, get back!
00:20:39Right, there's a car being kicked off.
00:20:42Get this thing down. Get rid of him.
00:20:45Get him here, get him here.
00:20:59From an early age, I did believe in God, you know what I mean?
00:21:02And it was always a big part of my childhood.
00:21:06When these soldiers were attacked, you know what I mean,
00:21:09that was the most horrendous thing I've ever seen in my life.
00:21:16It was one of them, you know what I mean, moments that make you stop.
00:21:21What kind of God would let this kind of madness go on, you know?
00:21:36The police say the two soldiers were then put in a black taxi
00:21:40and taken to waste ground behind the Anderson Town Road shops,
00:21:44where they were severely beaten, stripped and shot dead.
00:22:06MUSIC SLOWS
00:22:27I can see the footage in my head and it just makes me physically sick.
00:22:32I can't watch that. I literally...
00:22:34I literally cannot watch that. It's the most horrific...
00:22:42Horrific, horrific, horrific.
00:22:46I literally... I mean, you know...
00:22:51It's a...
00:23:03And then that shock progresses to worry about Mum's job
00:23:09and the family secret.
00:23:15Because Mum was in the army,
00:23:18and that was the biggest fear that I would have had.
00:23:22That Mummy could be next.
00:23:27I'm Jean and I was the Greenfinch in the Ulster Defence Force.
00:23:32And I'm proud of the years that I served.
00:23:37Just trying to subdue the IRA and prevent the atrocities.
00:23:44And as a single person with two children,
00:23:49I felt like I was finally doing something
00:23:54to try and make the country a better place.
00:23:58Did you understand how dangerous something like this was
00:24:01before you joined? No. No idea, really.
00:24:08How it could impact on your family.
00:24:13And it's not just you that's joining.
00:24:17Your whole family are targeted.
00:24:29Known by their nickname, Greenfinches are the only women
00:24:32in the British Army who have a full front-line role
00:24:35in military operations.
00:24:37Where have you come from?
00:24:39Since 1970, 174 male soldiers of the UDR and four Greenfinches
00:24:45have been killed by the IRA or other paramilitaries.
00:24:50The greatest strain, I think, is one that is unique
00:24:54to the circumstances that this regiment live under,
00:24:57where they are a threat to a greater extent
00:25:01when they're off duty than when they're on duty.
00:25:11The extension here, that's our house.
00:25:15Everybody in the forces lived under that kind of terror.
00:25:20But we as a family just felt extra vulnerable
00:25:22because we weren't on the barracks.
00:25:26We were actually living in the community,
00:25:28living on that interface.
00:25:41The intensity of the fear, I mean, it magnified to a point of...
00:25:48..I can't even describe how we felt,
00:25:52because not only were we targets from the Catholic side
00:25:57of Madrid Street and the IRA,
00:26:00we were even more targeted by the IRA because they were anti-army.
00:26:06And then there was a massive turn when some of the paramilitaries
00:26:12on the Protestant side also turned against the UDR, you know,
00:26:16and you were hated by everybody.
00:26:18I remember I came home one night
00:26:21and I noticed somebody coming out of my gate.
00:26:25And this was the early hours of the morning, coming off duty.
00:26:29So I went into the house and looked out of the back window
00:26:35and the two guys were standing looking up
00:26:39and they pulled the black coats over their heads.
00:26:42And I thought, oh, my God, they're going to kill me.
00:26:46And I thought, well, this is it.
00:26:49We tried to phone, to phone the police and they'd cut the phone lines.
00:26:54I came down again and I thought, you know,
00:26:59if I come down into the hall, they'll come in, they'll do me,
00:27:05but they won't get the kids.
00:27:07But, um, it didn't happen and it turned out, no,
00:27:14it was a gang of them and across the way they were breaking into a shop.
00:27:18It was a robbery, then? It was a robbery.
00:27:21It was a robbery. Not an assassination?
00:27:24No.
00:27:26I'll have a think when you look back on it.
00:27:29Mm-hm.
00:27:30It was a robbery.
00:27:31It was a robbery.
00:27:32It was a robbery.
00:27:34I'll have a think when you look back on it.
00:27:36Mm-hm.
00:27:38Yeah.
00:27:40But that's one of the horrible things about the job.
00:27:51You see, this is why it was so important to keep what Mum done secret.
00:27:59Because you're not dealing with normal people,
00:28:01you're dealing with terrorists,
00:28:02you're dealing with people who kill people.
00:28:07And that sucked the life out of my mum and out of our family.
00:28:18I mean, it could be anybody, anytime, anyplace, anywhere.
00:28:33Now, you see, I should have brought my glasses.
00:28:40It's a book about all the people who died during a conflict,
00:28:42from start to finish.
00:28:44It goes by the date they were killed, from the year,
00:28:47who killed them, why they were killed.
00:28:49And it is a powerful book to read.
00:28:53And it's not fiction. It's real.
00:28:56So... Yeah.
00:29:02I mean, it's everybody from RUC, soldiers, UDR, civilians,
00:29:08Catholic, Protestant, everyone's in it.
00:29:11And how many people do you know in there, did you say?
00:29:1427.
00:29:16And one of them's my father.
00:29:19BELL TOLLS
00:29:31My name is Billy McManus. I am from Belfast.
00:29:36My daddy was killed by loyalists.
00:29:395th of February, 1982.
00:29:44Him being killed is a box that I carry every day,
00:29:47and some days, it's a small box, and it fits in my pocket.
00:29:53And then some days, it's a big, big box,
00:29:55and I struggle to carry it.
00:29:59That's the only way I can describe it.
00:30:02And...
00:30:04..at certain times, you pull it down...
00:30:08..but you always have to pick it up again.
00:30:10That's the way I would describe Sean Grimm,
00:30:13and what happened to my daddy.
00:30:18I have great memories of being a young fellow
00:30:20and standing beside my dad.
00:30:22He was called Big Willie,
00:30:24and trying to drink a pint of Guinness with him,
00:30:26and they end up, how long are you in Egypt here?
00:30:29My dad could drink.
00:30:30But that's just the way he was.
00:30:33He liked his beer and Greyhounds
00:30:35and wasn't involved in any political thing, so...
00:30:40..and he's just a great guy.
00:30:41He's a great guy.
00:30:43He's a great guy.
00:30:44He's a great guy.
00:30:46And he just...
00:30:48He's just...
00:30:49He was just my dad.
00:30:53We stand here today to mark the 30th anniversary
00:30:56of the murder of Jack, Willie, Christy, Peter and James
00:31:01here in Swan Grimm's business.
00:31:04We also remember the seven others...
00:31:05Have the killers ever been caught?
00:31:07What's that?
00:31:08Have your father's killers ever been caught?
00:31:10No.
00:31:12No.
00:31:13These people have never been charged.
00:31:15Never been a day in court.
00:31:17They're still enjoying their lives.
00:31:20Planning weddings, going on holiday.
00:31:24It's not fair that the killers of these five people...
00:31:29..to get away with murder.
00:31:31I'd like to invite Willie and his family to sit.
00:31:35Families need to get the answers they deserve
00:31:37and the peace that they want.
00:31:42We have fought for 30 years to get this done.
00:31:45To get the truth about what happened on that day.
00:31:49And, as you know, I was there.
00:31:52As I stand here today, it makes me so proud
00:31:56that we never give up.
00:31:59And on Monday morning, we will stand shoulder to shoulder
00:32:03and hopefully get the report that we deserve.
00:32:07Will the truth be in the report?
00:32:08I hope so.
00:32:10Because once you get the truth, we will get justice.
00:32:14APPLAUSE
00:32:25Thank you so much.
00:32:28I don't call it the Troubles anymore.
00:32:31Because...
00:32:34..it was more than Troubles.
00:32:37We were a fucking animals teacher.
00:32:39And that's just the way it was.
00:32:45Help restore peace to Ulster.
00:32:48Any information you've got about explosions, murders,
00:32:51ring Belfast 652 155.
00:32:55And don't worry, your call is absolutely safe and confidential.
00:33:03Do you know who does all the shooting?
00:33:05What? Who is it?
00:33:07I don't know, Ted.
00:33:10Hello, Ted.
00:33:16You keep it septic.
00:33:18Because one wrong word can lead to somebody dying
00:33:22or somebody being arrested.
00:33:26It's like even going into bars, you know.
00:33:28If there was a stranger there, be watched.
00:33:31Because you don't know who they are.
00:33:34You know, they could be Special Branch.
00:33:36They could be a tout.
00:33:38Trying to sort of listen to information
00:33:40within sort of the Republican sort of family.
00:33:46There's an old thing that everybody used to say.
00:33:49It used to be painted all over the walls in Belfast.
00:33:56It used to talk about slaves.
00:34:00And did you take that seriously?
00:34:02Definitely.
00:34:07Because there was a time, sort of,
00:34:09then that the IRA had asked me for a favour.
00:34:14To plant fire bombs within Belfast shops.
00:34:21Which, at that stage, I was happy to do.
00:34:28You just go in, look around you, find your spot.
00:34:32You try and find out who did it.
00:34:35You've just got that stuff in your bag
00:34:36and you have to get rid of it.
00:34:38You have to put it somewhere where it's not going to be found.
00:34:42That's all I focused.
00:34:45And then you just waited.
00:34:51There was an 11-hour timer on them, you know.
00:34:54So you sort of knew, if you plant them at a certain time,
00:34:58then you knew there was going to be no injuries.
00:35:01You know, because they were to go off during the night.
00:35:05HONKING
00:35:08Two firebombs exploded in the centre of Belfast early this morning.
00:35:12A third ignited as firemen tackled the blaze.
00:35:15The owners estimate losses of more than £1 million.
00:35:21My feelings at that time, you know.
00:35:25My head was full of hatred, you know.
00:35:29And I wanted to help in some way.
00:35:32And if that's what I had to do to help...
00:35:36..never questioned, just did it.
00:35:39Is there anything that would have made you question, like, you know,
00:35:43if they said these devices are going to go off at lunchtime?
00:35:53No.
00:36:03Protestant as well as Catholic communities are hostage
00:36:06as sectarian murder escalates.
00:36:10But the key ingredient in the rising level of violence
00:36:13has been a new wave of Loyalist terrorists.
00:36:17For the first time since the 70s,
00:36:19Loyalists are responsible for more killing than the Republicans.
00:36:26People didn't go out as much in the early 80s.
00:36:29They didn't travel.
00:36:32I think they were always waiting to see what was happening.
00:36:34Cos that was what happened.
00:36:36It was, they don't do it, so we're going to do it to them.
00:36:38It's that tit for tat.
00:36:41But a knife in the eye leaves you blind.
00:36:43Right?
00:36:48I'll never forget watching the T-ban atrocity on the news.
00:36:51That was when workmen were coming home from working
00:36:54on an IUC station, and they had a raid blew up their van,
00:36:57and I think there was eight of them killed and so many injured.
00:37:01And I remember clear as day what my father says.
00:37:04Do you know what my father says?
00:37:06Some poor Catholic's going to get shot for it.
00:37:08Some innocent Catholic's going to die.
00:37:12And I didn't realise a couple of weeks later it'd be him.
00:37:17Do you want to tell me about that day?
00:37:20The boogies?
00:37:22It was just normal.
00:37:24Just a normal day.
00:37:26I was around painting in a house, and then it loads to him.
00:37:31It was about one o'clock.
00:37:32My dad, I turned around, he was walking up the road,
00:37:36and I shouted over to him, and he turned back and waved over to me.
00:37:40And then he just walked on up the road.
00:37:43And then I went back to work,
00:37:46and...
00:37:49..John, my supervisor at the time,
00:37:53run in and he says,
00:37:54Billy, something bad's happened up at the boogies,
00:37:56and I knew my daddy was there.
00:37:58I just... Don't ask me how I knew.
00:38:00I just... A terrible feeling came over me.
00:38:02SIREN WAILS
00:38:15Sean Graham bookmakers in a Catholic area of Belfast
00:38:19had been packed with people,
00:38:20and two gunmen entered the building
00:38:22and immediately started shooting indiscriminately.
00:38:27I sprinted up that road.
00:38:31The first person I'd seen was my uncle, then, I'd said.
00:38:34And I could realise there was something seriously wrong with him.
00:38:37He was holding his stomach.
00:38:39And the blood was coming to his hands, God love him.
00:38:44But then he says, where's your daddy?
00:38:47Go and get your daddy.
00:38:53So I went in to Sean Graham's boogies for that couple of seconds,
00:38:58and then this big police officer just appeared out of nowhere.
00:39:03And he says, let me in, my daddy's in there.
00:39:06He says, no, don't you go in, you don't want to go in.
00:39:09Back out of the way there, please.
00:39:11Are you all right? Stand there, we're swine.
00:39:13I don't know anyone here.
00:39:20Please try and move him back out of the way, please.
00:39:28People just were all around me.
00:39:31It was upon the morning, it was May.
00:39:37And then a big mate came out, Graham McCartan.
00:39:41And he said, Graham, where's my daddy?
00:39:44What about my daddy?
00:39:46And he just says...
00:39:47He just said, buddy, they're gone, they're all gone.
00:39:51He's dead.
00:39:52And I said, I'm going to go and get my daddy.
00:39:55He's dead.
00:39:57HE SCREAMS
00:40:03And then I let out a big scream.
00:40:06I was caught on camera, the camera crew caught it.
00:40:10And then Brian held me up because my legs went.
00:40:18It was a bloodbath.
00:40:20As victim after victim was brought out,
00:40:22the scale of the outrage slowly became clear.
00:40:25Five people died, another ten were injured in a hail of gunfire.
00:40:30Their sons, their husbands, their brothers and all,
00:40:33just getting shot dead.
00:40:34What for? What's he gaining?
00:40:36Nothing at all.
00:40:37Look at this woman, look at that woman down there.
00:40:42Come over here now.
00:40:44What happened to them?
00:40:45Fuck off, would you?
00:40:48Just innocent people.
00:40:50Not one of them involved in politics,
00:40:52not one of them involved in paramilitaryism.
00:40:55Just innocent.
00:41:03This evening, the outlawed Ulster Freedom Fighters
00:41:05said they carried out the murders.
00:41:07Remember T-Band, they said, a reference to the incident
00:41:10in which the IRA blew up a bus of Protestant constituents.
00:41:14The attack has drawn attention to the new tactics
00:41:16being deployed by loyalist paramilitary groups.
00:41:22From the first week of Sean Greene's bookies,
00:41:26people knew there was something dirty about it.
00:41:30I think it was talked about quietly at the first.
00:41:35But the word collusion was used to describe
00:41:39the kind of people who were involved in the attack.
00:41:44Collusion, to us, was where we were all looking.
00:41:49And just explain to me what collusion is.
00:41:53Collusion is, in my eyes, when...
00:41:59..loyalist paramilitaries and the state security forces
00:42:02work together in killing someone.
00:42:05And by the state security forces, do you mean...?
00:42:07I mean the British Army, the RUC.
00:42:10Um...
00:42:12The Spicer branch.
00:42:17Let's just talk about collusion.
00:42:21Well, collusion, to me, to me,
00:42:25is where a police officer goes to a member
00:42:28of a terrorist organisation and says to them,
00:42:32there's a target for you.
00:42:34You know, go and kill him.
00:42:37Obviously, that's out and out collusion.
00:42:39But it's not that simple.
00:42:45I mean, you could argue that I colluded every day
00:42:48of my Spicer branch life.
00:42:49I colluded with informants.
00:42:51I met them.
00:42:53So I'm breaking the law in the sense of it.
00:42:57I'm colluding, because they're telling me
00:43:01where the job is going down.
00:43:03But the reason I'm colluding, I'm colluding to try and get it stopped.
00:43:06This is the problem.
00:43:08When you start involving informants and stuff,
00:43:11it gets deep and dirty and murky,
00:43:13and it's all done under secrecy.
00:43:18I don't know who coined it as being the dirty war,
00:43:20but, yeah, it was, you know.
00:43:24But at the end of the day,
00:43:26we will do what we have to do to stop terrorists.
00:43:34Firebombs have badly damaged two stores
00:43:36in the centre of Belfast.
00:43:38Thousands of pounds' worth of stock was destroyed
00:43:40as the bombs exploded early this morning.
00:43:45It was over a period of a couple of months
00:43:47that I planted the incendiary devices,
00:43:50and it went.
00:43:52It went well.
00:43:59But then...
00:44:02..I was actually heavily pregnant at the time.
00:44:06Doing it.
00:44:09And then...
00:44:13..next stage of my life was that I was in hospital.
00:44:18I had my second child.
00:44:20Lovely wee girl.
00:44:22And...
00:44:25..when I came out of labour ward...
00:44:29..somebody came and told me that...
00:44:34..an ex-boyfriend...
00:44:36..he was talking big time.
00:44:39There had been a number of arrests
00:44:41due to the information he had given to the RUC.
00:44:45And my name is one of them.
00:44:50Um...
00:44:54I'll make a point here that, actually,
00:44:57the fellow who had given my information,
00:45:00given information about me,
00:45:02was the baby I had's father.
00:45:10So, I sort of had to come round that sort of, you know, betrayal.
00:45:15You know, after having a child, his child...
00:45:20..and he can give your name forward.
00:45:27I understand how, through interrogation,
00:45:30people sort of break down.
00:45:32But he knew the consequences for me.
00:45:38It was early hours, Sunday morning.
00:45:42The cops and the Brits were at the door.
00:45:44We were arresting you under the tires of Macdon,
00:45:46stuff like this here.
00:45:48I went right, OK.
00:45:49I asked him to go back in again, to say to the older kids.
00:45:53They wouldn't let me back in the room.
00:45:55I was there arrested, so from the kitchen,
00:45:57they just took me out the jeep.
00:45:59And they took me straight to Castle Rea...
00:46:04..for seven days' interrogation.
00:46:21Castle Rea, a scary place. Huh?
00:46:23Is Castle Rea quite a scary place?
00:46:25A fucking nightmare.
00:46:27It's hellhole.
00:46:30You know, just total, total hellhole.
00:46:34You know, they play mind games with you.
00:46:36Oh, they're good.
00:46:38Twist things and everything else, you know.
00:46:40Just constant interrogation.
00:46:44They try and break you.
00:46:49They say they were interrogated, I say they were interviewed.
00:46:54But saving lives is what we're doing.
00:46:57It's what we're about.
00:46:59And any piece of intelligence is valuable.
00:47:01Any smallest piece of intelligence is useful.
00:47:05I was trying to break them into admitting that they were members
00:47:09of a paramilitary organisation and then recruit them.
00:47:14Personally, I think everyone's recruitable,
00:47:17if you find the right button to press.
00:47:21A lot of people in there didn't come out the same people,
00:47:24you know, through the hours and hours of interrogation.
00:47:27You know, you could be sitting there, it's just a wee table.
00:47:33And them two sitting on the other side in the wee room.
00:47:37They're maybe constantly kicking, kicking your chair,
00:47:39screaming into your ear.
00:47:42You know, trying to degrade you as a woman.
00:47:47Talk about your child, you're an unfit mother, and this, that and that.
00:47:50They're looking for something just to break you down.
00:47:53Offering you money.
00:47:55They give them information.
00:47:58They offered me 35,000.
00:48:00But that's one thing you don't do, you don't fucking talk to cancer.
00:48:04You give them, it's nothing, you give them no information.
00:48:07And I was proud that I didn't, um, didn't talk or tell anything.
00:48:15You know?
00:48:18They didn't get anything from me.
00:48:24As a young kid, I can remember feeling that constant awareness.
00:48:29You know, say nothing, to talk to nobody, tell nobody anything.
00:48:38And it's so hard to think we lived like that.
00:48:40You know, I was a young girl,
00:48:43I didn't have a lot of friends, I didn't have a lot of family.
00:48:46I didn't have a lot of friends, I didn't have a lot of family.
00:48:49I didn't have a lot of friends, I didn't have a lot of family.
00:48:52You know, I suppose sometimes I would go,
00:48:55like, what were you thinking, joining at that time?
00:48:58But I can see it as an adult now,
00:49:00as a child you can't because you just want to blend in.
00:49:02But you can see money was tight.
00:49:05You needed to do it, you wanted to do something for the country.
00:49:08I've never, ever heard Denise's view on it.
00:49:13Never.
00:49:15Did you not ask?
00:49:17Is it because you haven't asked or is it just because...?
00:49:21To be honest, I never thought to ask.
00:49:26It just, it was something I had to do and...
00:49:31It was something that the kids, as I thought, understood.
00:49:39But to ask them, really, how you spelt,
00:49:46I feel ashamed now that I didn't.
00:49:48No, don't.
00:49:50You know, I should have, I should have realised,
00:49:53but I didn't.
00:49:55I thought I was doing the best that I could do.
00:50:06Until this, doing this here, I couldn't even say...
00:50:10..Uriart, you know, because it just...
00:50:14I was so drilled not to say it, you know, Army, Uriart.
00:50:18These are words that I have only just started in my vocabulary now
00:50:22in the sense of openly talking about it.
00:50:26I should be proud and able to stand up and say,
00:50:29my mum was a Greenfinch.
00:50:31I'm so proud of you.
00:50:32And this is probably the first time I've said it.
00:50:35You know, really and truly, I've not felt fear
00:50:40for putting you at risk, you know.
00:50:42And we ought to be able to do that in our life, you know,
00:50:47and be proud of the people we are,
00:50:49proud of the families we come from,
00:50:50proud of the risks we take, all of those things.
00:50:53And now, hopefully, we're at a time where, you know,
00:50:56if something was going to happen, it would have happened, you know.
00:51:00I hope that we're not putting ourselves at any further risk
00:51:05by coming out and... I don't think so.
00:51:06..explaining how it is from our side of the story,
00:51:11because everybody's got their own version of their own stuff, you know.
00:51:16That's the truth. Mm-hm.
00:51:28I have a sentence to five years.
00:51:31But when you go into jail, you sort of just set your mind,
00:51:35you know, this is your life now.
00:51:38And you just have to get on with it, you know.
00:51:42And the way you'd deal with that was to block the kids out.
00:51:47It sounds harsh, you know,
00:51:52but you would be climbing the walls
00:51:54and you could end up with a nervous breakdown, you know.
00:52:00And you just had to get on and do your time.
00:52:13I always remember my first visit with my kids.
00:52:15I hadn't seen my kids in a couple of months.
00:52:20And one of the other prisoners had...
00:52:24..a baby on her knee.
00:52:27And I remember it was a wee loopy cardigan,
00:52:31so it was lilac and white, and there was one,
00:52:33and she had swarthy skin and a wee loopy hat.
00:52:36It was gorgeous.
00:52:38And I remember Donna saying,
00:52:41I remember Donna saying,
00:52:43look at my new wee baby, and I says, oh, she's gorgeous, you know.
00:52:48And then I realised it was my own child.
00:52:53I didn't know her.
00:52:59And that was hard.
00:53:01That, you know, somebody else was holding a child
00:53:05that I had delivered and fed that didn't recognise her.
00:53:12And...
00:53:16..that was...
00:53:18I was embarrassed, I was ashamed, you know.
00:53:21If anything was racing through my head
00:53:23that I actually didn't recognise my own child.
00:53:30Cos she had something on that I hadn't bought her.
00:53:37And after that, I says...
00:53:40..I have to put myself together here.
00:53:43You know, I have to put that in my head.
00:53:46And move on from it.
00:53:49But still, this day, you know,
00:53:52it pops up, the lily cardigan and the wee hat, the wee baby.
00:53:59You know, em...
00:54:02Yeah.
00:54:04It was the hardest.
00:54:10CHILDREN CLAMOUR
00:54:19Looking back now, I was probably one of the lucky ones.
00:54:23Prison probably saved me.
00:54:26You know, I'm not dead.
00:54:29You look at how many people died.
00:54:33Friends have died, you know.
00:54:35It's all that what-if.
00:54:37What-if.
00:54:39You know, this could have happened or that could have happened.
00:54:43Yeah. The thing is, at least my kids could come up and see me.
00:54:48There's children who could never see their parents again.
00:54:58I never told my dad that I loved him.
00:55:01But my dad said to me one day,
00:55:05when he came in drunk one night,
00:55:07and I used to take off his boots.
00:55:12I think it was a Sunday or something.
00:55:14I ain't going to bed till he had to get up for work in the morning.
00:55:17And he just...
00:55:19I put him in the bed and I threw the blanket over him.
00:55:22And I walked out the door and he just turned around and he says,
00:55:26I love ye.
00:55:28And I should have turned around and said it, and I didn't.
00:55:31And that's a regret I have.
00:55:33Because I never got the opportunity to say it to him.
00:55:42I know my father was killed, part of the Dirty War.
00:55:46Collusion, agents, people working for the state.
00:55:50That's just what happened.
00:55:54And how did you piece all this together?
00:55:56How long did it take?
00:55:59It took about 30 years.
00:56:04Of going to court,
00:56:08getting bits and pieces from other people's reports, inquests.
00:56:12But the biggest thing, the biggest one, was the police ombudsman.
00:56:28Is there any family who doesn't have a report?
00:56:34I was very anxious.
00:56:36I suppose you were filled with apprehension
00:56:38about what was going to be said in it.
00:56:40And...
00:56:42I suppose there's a weight on your shoulders
00:56:44where you knew that for 30 years you'd been fighting for this day.
00:56:48And...
00:56:50I didn't know what to do.
00:56:52I didn't know what to do.
00:56:54I didn't know what to do.
00:56:57Hoping that you'd get the answers in it.
00:57:03In Northern Ireland, the police watchdog has found evidence
00:57:06of collusive behaviour by police
00:57:08in 11 murders by loyalist paramilitaries in Belfast in the 1990s.
00:57:13The inquiry examined the killings of five people in a bookmaker's shop
00:57:17and six other fatal shootings.
00:57:21The police ombudsman found failings and collusive behaviours
00:57:24by REC officers.
00:57:26Intelligence had not been shared.
00:57:28Warnings had not been passed on.
00:57:30Weapons had been given to loyalist killers.
00:57:32But the biggest amongst them
00:57:34was how informants were recruited and run.
00:57:36They were providing information, but they were also killing.
00:57:39Eight individuals were identified as agents.
00:57:42Between them, they were linked to 27 murders and attempted murders.
00:57:48I appreciate that you didn't have anything to do
00:57:50with the Sean Graham Bookies case.
00:57:53But I do want to ask, how did you deal with informants
00:57:56that were breaking the law?
00:57:58Well, I've had to make some very difficult decisions sometimes.
00:58:03But there's nobody going to tell an agent,
00:58:05somebody you had recruited,
00:58:07I don't want your intelligence,
00:58:09because you stole from that old woman's house last night.
00:58:12You know?
00:58:14I mean, I do want that information.
00:58:16Where would your line be, like, if this ends now?
00:58:20Well, if he's been out and slaughtered individuals and murdered,
00:58:23you know, he's beyond control.
00:58:25That would be your line?
00:58:31Again, I would have to weigh up what I can get from him,
00:58:34but, yeah, that would be very...
00:58:36That would be a line, yeah.
00:58:47It's all iron paper.
00:58:50They armed him, they recruited him,
00:58:53and they actually...
00:58:57..let people away with murder.
00:59:03It leaves me frustrated, angry,
00:59:06but I'm not going to stop, I'm not going to give up.
00:59:09The next step is to get the case reopened
00:59:12and go after the killers.
00:59:15I could name the three people
00:59:17involved in Sean Green's bootmakers.
00:59:19And if we can work it out,
00:59:21who pulled the trigger and who drove the car,
00:59:23the police must know.
00:59:25Why, 30 years later,
00:59:27are they still attacking these loyalist death squads?
00:59:30And what is the police and I going to do about it?
00:59:41I know who killed my father.
00:59:43I know their names.
00:59:47And I've seen photographs of them.
00:59:49And I know they know me.
00:59:53But I would like my day in court.
00:59:55I would like their families to know that they were murderers.
01:00:01And they killed my father.
01:00:03A 54-year-old man who was shot nine times.
01:00:07Because he was a Roman Catholic.
01:00:10And I hope justice wraps their door.
01:00:12That's all I want.
01:00:18And I want to meet my daddy.
01:00:20Pray he'll love me for one last time.
01:00:24That's all I want.
01:00:48Blessed are the peacemakers.
01:00:52The shouting and the cheering and the yoo-hooing.
01:00:55Oh, my God, there's an end coming to this.
01:00:58There can't be peace at any cost.
01:01:00Because then it's not really peace.
01:01:03I just remember where I was. I just remember who I was.
01:01:06I remember the anger that I had.
01:01:09Sometimes you need to stare into the abyss
01:01:11to realise that this can't go on.
01:01:18To watch exclusive interviews about the making of this series,
01:01:22visit bbc.co.uk forward slash once upon a time
01:01:27and follow the links to The Open University.
01:01:47THE OPEN UNIVERSITY