Notorious loyalist was 'a state agent' - claims

Billy Wright was a UVF leader in Mid Ulster

A loyalist killer has claimed the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) believed Billy Wright, the organisation’s leader in Mid Ulster, was a state agent.

Laurence Maguire told BBC NI’s Spotlight programme he had been called to answer questions about Wright for a UVF inquiry in the 1990s.

Maguire said he had begun to have suspicions when Wright stopped him from killing three suspected Irish Republican Army (IRA) members, who were later killed by the republican group - accused of being state agents.

The revelation comes after the government asked the Supreme Court to rule on whether to keep some intelligence on UVF murders a secret.

Laurence Maguire speaking to BBC Northern Ireland’s Spotlight programme

The loyalist paramilitary group has been linked to multiple killings.

Parts of Laurence Maguire’s interview were first broadcast in 2019, but further details of what he told Spotlight have become more relevant because of information which emerged at recently stalled inquests.

Maguire, who was jailed in 1994 for five murders, told Spotlight that Wright had asked him to track three men believed to be in the IRA.

He described following them weekly, and his plan to shoot them in a rural park outside Dungannon.

But, he said, whenever he proposed the attack, Billy Wright “was putting it back”.

“I thought there was something strange about it, and when I look back now, it seems there was a lot of strange things about it,” Maguire said.

L-R Aidan Starrs, John Dignam and Gregory Burns were abducted and killed by the IRA

Shortly afterwards, in July 1992, the three men – Gregory Burns, Aidan Starrs and John Dignam – were abducted and killed by the IRA.

The IRA said all three men were informers, and had been involved in the murder of Portadown woman Margaret Perry because she had learned that Burns was working for the intelligence services.

Former IRA member Tommy McKearney, whose brother and uncle were killed by Wright’s gang, said Maguire’s story raised the question of whether Wright had been protecting the IRA men because they were informants.

If Wright “was an agent”, he asked, “was he acting on orders to prevent Laurence Maguire operating against them?”

Maguire said he had subsequently been questioned by the UVF as part of an investigation into “suspicions” about Wright.

“I think it came to light that he was definitely working for somebody else.

“I just call it the Crown," he said.

Bernie McKearney's husband and parents were killed in 1992

An inquest into UVF murders in Mid Ulster heard earlier this year that the late Progressive Unionist Party leader, David Ervine, had headed just such an inquiry into Billy Wright.

The court heard the investigation had collapsed when another senior UVF figure, and suspected police informer, Robin Jackson, did not show up to testify against Wright.

Jackson, who has since died, was also named in court documents as being suspected of involvement in a number of attacks in Mid Ulster.

Bernie McKearney’s husband and parents were killed in attacks carried out by Mid Ulster UVF in 1992.

Inquests into the deaths of Kevin and John McKearney, and Charles and Teresa Fox, stalled earlier this year when the secretary of state took legal action to prevent some material from being released.

“I do get emotional at times and I hate it, because I try to be a strong person,” Bernie McKearney said.

“But it has been hard knowing that if Kevin had have got the protection that state agents got, he could be living today."

Kevin and John McKearney were attacked in the family butcher shop in Moy

Other former UVF figures have also accused Wright of being an agent.

Former Police Ombudsman Baroness Nuala O’Loan said, “I think we know that Billy Wright was an informant."

She is critical of the government’s legal action, describing it as “absolutely appalling”.

“There is no justification whatsoever for denying them information which may have been of some significance to national security 30 years ago or years ago, but which now cannot, in many cases, be of any significance whatsoever.”

Wright broke away from the UVF in 1996 to form the Loyalist Volunteer Force and was killed in the Maze Prison the following year.

All Troubles-era cases are now being referred to a new body known as the Independent Commission for Reconciliation and Information Recovery (ICRIR).

The Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), Jon Boutcher, has said he is prepared to give material to new investigators “without condition and without redaction”.

The Chief Constable Jon Boutcher said he is prepared to give police material to new investigators

The Parliamentary Under Secretary of State at the Northern Ireland Office, Lord Caine, encouraged families to work with the ICRIR.

“This is now before the courts and we have to await the court’s judgement," he said.

“What I would do, is encourage families who have lost loved ones, or whose loved ones are seriously injured, to work with the new body under the distinguished leadership of Sir Declan Morgan.”

In April it emerged Laurence Maguire would be prosecuted for conspiracy to murder and possession of firearms, following admissions he made to the Spotlight Programme broadcast in 2019.

Spotlight: Killer Secrets is available to watch on the BBC iPlayer and on BBC One Northern Ireland at 22.40 on Tuesday 21 May.