Irish Sunday Mirror

INTELLIGEN­CE INSIDER ON ARMY’S PRIZED ASSET Secret agent ‘Stakeknife’ saved 200 lives during the Troubles ...and that agent could be a woman

- EXCLUSIVE BY AMANDA KILLELEA News@irishmirro­r.ie

IT was 1983 and the IRA had just killed six people in London by exploding a bomb outside Harrods.

In Northern Ireland, 38 members of the Republican terror group escaped from the Maze Prison, killing three prison service guards.

And the second anniversar­y of IRA hunger striker Bobby Sands’ death in the jail had just passed.

That same year – the middle of the 30-year conflict known as the Troubles – Will Britten became the youngestev­er member at 23 of a top-secret unit set up to recruit terrorists as double agents. And Will suggests that the most notorious of them all – codenamed Stakeknife – could have been a woman. “Why not?” he says.

Stakeknife not only saved his life but that of about 200 others. “Stakeknife was the sort of gold-plated example of what can be done,” says Will.

INFORMERS

“You cannot do the job unless you are recruiting tried, trusted, tested terrorists. Clearly she was one of those.

“We once did a rough calculatio­n and we reckon the informatio­n passed on by Stakeknife saved in the region of 200 lives. You can’t do more than that.”

Will – who cannot reveal his true identity – worked for the Force Research Unit, set up in the 1980s by British Army intelligen­ce to infiltrate Republican and Loyalist terror groups.

As well as members, the FRU targeted relatives, colleagues, boyfriends and girlfriend­s.

But within weeks of starting his undercover role, an office junior’s blunder compromise­d Will’s identity and that of his latest signing.

Paperwork containing their real names was mistakenly binned, rather than incinerate­d, and passed to the IRA. Luckily another agent, thought to have been Stakeknife, found out in time. Stakeknife has been widely rumoured to be IRA man Freddie Scappaticc­i, who died in his 70s last April, but both he and the British Army denied it. Scappaticc­i was head of the IRA unit known as the “nutting squad” responsibl­e for torturing and killing informers.

It was a fate shared by many – known as touts – suspected of passing informatio­n to the British.

Will – who served 27 years in the Army and became a senior intelligen­ce officer “because it resonated with my interests in life” – said cash was their main, but not their only, motivator.

Will, who details his exploits in a new memoir, says: “Life was hard in West Belfast and South Armagh, so money goes a long way but it was never, never the sole reason.

“There are a whole gamut of reasons to go against your history, your culture, the people, the organisati­on.

“It could be simply because, as a

teenager you were beaten up by some hoods on Saturday night and you have that burning resentment.

“We had older agents worried about the future of their kids and grandchild­ren. People were sick of the Troubles, they wanted a better future.” Inevitably,

‘‘ You cannot do the job unless you’re recruiting trusted terrorists, clearly she was one of those

some agents paid the ultimate price, like IRA quartermas­ter Frank Hegarty who passed on informatio­n about a cache of arms. After being exposed, he was whisked to safety with a new identity but persuaded to return by late IRA and Sinn Fein chief Martin Mcguinness.

“There’s a tape recording where you can hear Mcguinness and it’s pretty chilling stuff,” says Will.

“At that point we weren’t able to do anything for him. His body was found at the side of the road. Our number one rule was that nobody should die because of what we were doing. We’d never have sacrificed a third-party life to save an agent, and if an agent was under threat, we’d pull them out, which happened a few times.”

Their intelligen­ce even saved the other side – when Will and his colleagues discovered that loyalists planned to assassinat­e former Sinn

Fein president Gerry Adams. With hindsight, thank God we did save Adams, because he was instrument­al to the peace process. We did wonder if it was a good move, but he was a member of the public, he was threatened and he gets to be warned. It was the right decision,” says Will.

But they weren’t always able to prevent attacks.

In October 1984, Will and his team had been on an exercise in Brighton the day before an IRA bomb exploded in the Grand Hotel, targeting Prime Minister Margaret Thatcher and her cabinet at the Tory conference. Five people were killed and 31 injured.

“It’s pure coincidenc­e that we were in Brighton,” says Will. “Nobody knew that was going to happen.

“When anything happens people say it’s another intelligen­ce failure. Terrorists just have to be lucky once, we have to be lucky every single time.

“The fact there are so few security incidents in the UK at the moment really is testament to the work that Special Branch and the security services are doing. But there will always be times when the bad guys get one over.” Adams has accused the FRU and Special branch of passing informatio­n to “loyalist death squads” in the 1980s.

But 40 years on, Will says he is proud of what he did and wrote his book to put the record straight, partly for his children.

Will explains: “There are a lot of conspiracy theories – that we were burning down police stations or colluding with loyalist paramilita­ries. We weren’t, nor could we ever.

We damaged the IRA but we forced them into a position which has only been good for them. Sinn Fein is the biggest party in the province, which is unbelievab­le. One of our great achievemen­ts as an organisati­on is that we helped create a situation where the peace process took hold.

“A lot of people lost their lives, but equally, we were able to save a lot of lives and that gives me a feeling of great pride.”

We were able to save a lot of lives in the Troubles and that gives me a feeling of great pride

The Deadly Game: A British Army Secret Agent Handler in the Troubles, by Will Britten, is published by The History Press on March 28

 ?? ?? MASKED Escorts for coffin of hunger striker Bobby Sands
JAIL 38 IRA men broke out of the Maze
STRIFE Soldier searches man after gun battle in 1971
CHIEFS Adams and Mcguinness
MASKED Escorts for coffin of hunger striker Bobby Sands JAIL 38 IRA men broke out of the Maze STRIFE Soldier searches man after gun battle in 1971 CHIEFS Adams and Mcguinness
 ?? ?? SHOCK After the IRA bomb Harrods store
FUNERAL Of Sands in 1981
WRECK Grand Hotel, Brighton, after IRA blast in October 1983
SHOCK After the IRA bomb Harrods store FUNERAL Of Sands in 1981 WRECK Grand Hotel, Brighton, after IRA blast in October 1983

Newspapers in English

Newspapers from Ireland