An English police officer removed from a controversial shoot-to-kill investigation was accused of being sympathetic to the IRA.
Details of the revelation are contained a new book about the sacking of deputy chief constable of Greater Manchester Police John Stalker in the 1980s.
‘Decades of Deceit: The Stalker Affair and its Legacy’ provides in-depth analysis of what many regard as one of the most notorious episodes of the Troubles.
In the book Paddy Hillyard, professor Emeritus of Sociology at Queen’s University, casts fresh light on events that led to Mr Stalker being removed from the sensitive shoot-to-kill investigation.
Mr Stalker had been appointed to examine the RUC killings of six republicans during three separate incidents in November and December 1982.
He began his work in May 1984 and produced an interim report in September the following year.
However, this work was incomplete as the senior officer had been denied access to information held by the RUC and MI5.
Mr Stalker was later removed from his investigation role, with many believing this was part of a wider conspiracy.
The decision was taken at a meeting of senior English police officers in Scarborough in May 1986 during the annual conference of the Police Federation.
British Home Secretary Douglas Hurd later denied that the then RUC Chief Constable John Hermon was in attendance.
In June 1986 Mr Stalker was stood down and was later suspended from duty over allegations that he associated with criminals.
He was subsequently cleared of all allegations and returned to duty, although he was not reinstated to the shoot-to-kill inquiry, which was taken over Colin Sampson.
It has now emerged that a report produced by a secret unit of by Greater Manchester Police and signed by the then chief constable accused Mr Stalker of being sympathetic to the IRA.
The report read: “In light of his association as show in this paper it cannot be said that he is totally impartial and, whilst it is unlikely to be the case, it could well be said by some that he has reasons to be sympathetic to the IRA.
“It follows therefore that urgent consideration should be given to allowing Mr Stalker to continue to head this most sensitive inquiry.”
Mr Hillyard sets out how in 1981 MI5 had introduced a “new secret policing strategy….which relied heavily on the use of informers and state agents to provide intelligence”.
In the years that followed a series of alleged shoot-to-kill operations were carried resulting a large number of people being killed by state forces.
Mr Hillyard has said that Mr Stalker’s investigation “posed a very real threat to the strategy and the possible prosecution of those in MI5 who secretly devised the policy and those who ran informers and state agents illegally knowing that they committed crimes, including murder, with impunity”.
“Crucially, Stalker had stumbled across key elements of MI5’s 1981 secret counter-insurgency strategy which prioritised intelligence gathering and the protection of informers and state agents over the detection and prosecution of crime (see chapter 3). He found that there was no legal framework for running informers and state agents and Special Branch controlled all intelligence,” he said.
Mr Hillyard believes the legacy of the Stalker affair “continued to shape events” long after he was removed.
“The thread that persisted was the determination of MI5 and successive British governments to maintain the illegal and deadly intelligence-led counter-insurgency strategy and to prevent details of its operation becoming public by appeals to ‘national security’, the extensive use of Public Interest Immunity (PII) Certificates and other manoeuvres,” Mr Hillyard said.
PII certificates are used by the state when it does not want information to be seen by the public.
The failure to provide information and use of PII certificates by the state was linked to the collapse of numerous legacy inquests earlier this year.
In 1988 it was confirmed that prosecutions announced by Mr Stalker and his successor Mr Sampson would not be in the ‘public interest’.
Under the British government’s legacy act, which came into force in May, all Troubles inquests and civil cases were ended.
While the Labour government insists the act will be repealed and replaced, no timeframe has been given.
Mr Hillyard says the act “effectively abolishes the rule of law for the period of the conflict”.
“The book’s overall argument is that the British state failed in its fundamental duty to protect life and to act lawfully,” he said.
“The rule of law and democratic accountability were abandoned.
“Those who devised the illegal strategy, planned collusive acts and ran murderous informers and agents will never be prosecuted for perverting the course of justice or for malfeasance in public office while hundreds of victim families will be denied the truth of how their loved ones were killed.”
::‘Decades of Deceit: The Stalker Affair and its Legacy’ by Paddy Hillyard and published by Beyond the Pale is available now.
