Senior loyalist paramilitaries who were employed as police informers at the height of the Troubles smuggled an arsenal of weapons into Northern Ireland that were used in at least 70 murders and numerous attempted murders, according to an ombudsman’s investigation.

In a devastating report that is likely to challenge previous official narratives of the nature of the conflict, Michael Maguire, the police ombudsman for Northern Ireland, said that during this period special branch detectives concealed information about loyalist terrorists from colleagues who were investigating those crimes.

Northern Ireland loyalist shootings: one night of carnage, 18 years of silence Read more

Furthermore, Maguire said he had “no hesitation” in concluding that police colluded with the men responsible for a loyalist gun attack on a bar in the village of Loughinisland that was packed with men watching Ireland play Italy in the 1994 World Cup. Six men – including an 87-year-old – were killed and five were wounded.

Twenty-four hours before members of the gang were to be arrested, they received a tipoff from a police officer; this leak was not investigated.

Further acts of collusion in that case included “the protection of informants through wilful acts and the passive turning a blind eye; fundamental failures in the initial police investigation and the destruction of police records”, Maguire said.

Facebook Twitter Pinterest Campaigners for justice for the Loughinisland killings before the ombudsman’s report was published. Photograph: Julien Behal/PA

The automatic rifle that was used in that attack was part of the arsenal that had been bought, imported and distributed with the help of police informers, he said.

One police file of information about the Ulster Volunteer Force gunmen who were responsible for some of the subsequent killings was marked “NDD/Slow Waltz”, which Maguire said meant no downward dissemination, share slowly – if at all.

Inadequate investigations

The attack on the Heights bar at Loughinisland came two days after gunmen from the Irish National Liberation Army shot three members of the Ulster Volunteer Force in Belfast. Two masked men stood at the entrance to the bar, hurled insults at the customers, then opened fire with an automatic rifle. Such was the worldwide horror that the Queen, Pope John Paul II and Bill Clinton all sent messages of condolence to the victims’ families.



Those murdered were Barney Green, 87; Adrian Rogan, 34; Malcolm Jenkinson, 53; Daniel McCreanor, 59; Patrick O’Hare, 35; and Eamon Byrne, 39.

Although the purpose of Maguire’s investigation was to examine the failures in the police investigation that followed those murders, his 160-page report also examines the way in which loyalists were able to smuggle enormous numbers of weapons into Northern Ireland in late 1987, and the way in which they were then used in a series of other killings, many of which were inadequately investigated.

He concluded that police were aware of loyalist plans to import weapons from South Africa and were also aware that the arsenal of assault rifles, handguns, grenades and other weapons had arrived in Belfast. “I also believe that there were informants involved in the procurement and distribution of the weapons, including individuals at the most senior levels of the organisation(s) responsible for the importation,” Maguire said. But the officers investigating the murders were not informed of this, as special branch detectives were more concerned with the strategic value of intelligence than the prevention or detection of crime.

The weapons were kept for a while at a farm owned by James Mitchell, a former police reservist who had been convicted of terrorist offences eight years earlier, and who had told police that the property was being used as an arms dump. Mitchell was tipped off that his farm was about to be searched, two hours before police arrived, and was able to move the arms.

One of the suspects in the Loughinisland attack was also a police informant, Maguire said, and continued in this role for a number of years after the murders.

With many in Northern Ireland unable to agree about the true nature of the conflict – or even the language that should be used to describe it – the Northern Ireland secretary, Theresa Villiers, spoke in a speech earlier this year of a “pernicious counter-narrative” that falsely claimed that misconduct by the police and armed forces was rife.

While Maguire’s report stressed that many in the police have worked tirelessly to bring the Loughinisland killers to justice, its damning conclusions will be seized upon by those who condemned Villiers’s comments, and who argue that security forces collusion with loyalist terrorism was a central feature of the conflict.

Paddy McCreanor, nephew of victim Daniel McCreanor, said: “Collusion is no illusion and collusion happened. The truth has come out and that’s all we ever wanted.” Emma Rogan, whose father was also killed, said: “We finally have a report by the police ombudsman that at last vindicates our long-held suspicions and belief that the truth about these murders was being covered up by the very people – the police – who were supposed to be protecting us, be on our side and investigate and bring to justice those responsible.”

The families’ lawyer, Niall Murphy, said Maguire had exposed a terrifying degree of collusion. “This report is one of the most damning expositions of state collusion in mass murder that has ever been published,” he said.

George Hamilton, chief constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland, said: “This report makes uncomfortable reading, particularly in relation to the alleged actions of police officers at the time. The ombudsman has stated that collusion was a feature of these murders in that there were both wilful and passive acts carried out by police officers. This is totally unacceptable and those responsible should be held accountable.”

