Revealed: IRA plot to cause blackout
THE IRA had planned to knock out the power supply to the south east of England in the final years of its terror campaign, a former member has claimed.
The audacious plan is alleged to have come in the mid-1990s.
Former US Marine turned IRA gun runner John Crawley made the claim in the final episode of the BBC’s Spotlight on the Troubles: A Secret History, which explores the last IRA bombing campaign in England and the secret peace talks.
Mr Crawley, who had been caught smuggling guns from the US for the IRA, said he was arrested just before a plan to bomb London’s electricity supply was carried out. “We were going to knock out the power supply of the south east of
England,” he said.
whereby people could speak on behalf of organisations in a truth process without fear of personal recrimination, then he would be able to take part.”
Oliver, who has been linked to 14 unsolved UVF murders in Mid-Ulster, came to public attention again last week when he was named as a serial killer in the BBC’s Spotlight On The Troubles: A Secret History.
He refused to talk to reporter Mandy McAuley when she approached him at Elim, his church in Portadown, for the show, which said he “may be one of Northern Ireland’s most prolific serial killers still alive today”.
Documents show how Oliver was previously in contact with cold-case detectives to discuss UVF murders.
The HET transcripts state: “He (Oliver) no longer considered himself a Protestant, loyalist or unionist. He stated he no longer believed in sectarianism and fundamentally disagreed with the prejudices that entailed.
“He deeply regretted the Troubles and the loss of every single life that was incurred: none of it should have happened.”
The 14 murders Oliver has been linked to include the killing of pensioner Roseanne Mallon near Dungannon in 1994, the Craigavon mobile shop murders of teenagers Catriona Rennie, Eileen Duffy and plumber Brian Frizzell in 1991 and the killings of Moy butchers Jack and Kevin McKearney, and of pensioners Charlie and Tess Fox, which all happened in 1992.