The late IRA bomber Dolours Price claimed Gerry Adams always gave the orders to "disappear" suspected informers such as Belfast mother-of-10 Jean McConville.

Price, who was convicted of the Old Bailey bombings in London, said that in the 1970s she was part of a secret IRA team called The Unknowns run by Adams, who she claimed was the commander of the Provisionals in Belfast.

Spotlight said the role of the IRA's Unknowns was to make people accused of informing disappear.

In a recording played on BBC NI's Spotlight on the Troubles: A Secret History last night, Price said she drove a number of the Disappeared to their deaths, always at that period on the orders of Adams.

"That's his baby. That's his thought," she said, adding that she didn't agree with Adams and argued with him.

"I never, ever got to the bottom of why Gerry Adams thought that up.

"I never knew why," Price added.

Spotlight replayed footage of an interview from 1972 with some of Jean McConville's 10 children after she was dragged from their home in west Belfast.

Dolours Price said she drove her to her execution, adding: "Adams was in a house down the Falls Road.

"She had been arrested.

"She got into the car.

"As far as she was concerned she was being taken away by the Legion of Mary to a place of safety.

"That was unfortunate for her."

Jean McConville's body wasn't found until more than 30 years later in a shallow grave on Shelling Hill Beach in Co Louth.

She had been shot in the head and the claim was that she had given information to the Army about the IRA - an allegation refuted by her family.

Gerry Adams has always denied that he had any involvement in the murder of Jean McConville or any of the Disappeared.

No one has ever been convicted of the murder, but Price previously admitted being haunted by her actions in later years.

Belfast Telegraph