£15k paid to Troubles informant for info that led to arrest of ‘notorious IRA gang’

NIO considered major downsides of paying agents

THE largest single payment to an informant in Northern Ireland during the first 13 years of the Troubles was £15,000 for information which led to the arrest of a “notorious” IRA unit, according to a previously secret Government file.

Even when once-sensitive documents are declassified decades after they were created, intelligence matters are often blacked out or removed from files.

Sometimes this is absurd, such as the recent refusal of the Government to admit that Freddie Scappaticci was the agent ‘Stakeknife’, even though everyone knows that to be the case, or the refusal of Theresa May as Home Secretary to admit that Martin Mcgartland was an IRA informant, even though he’d written a book about his role, there had been a film telling his story and he’d made clear he wanted her to be open about what he had done.

However, a recently declassified Northern Ireland Office (NIO) file discovered by the Belfast Telegraph at The National Archives in Kew sheds some more light on how the widespread use of informers grew out of what had been failed attempts to dangle money in front of those who might hand over key pieces of information.

In March 1982, the Daily Mirror reported on what it said was a new attempt to get people to “grass” on terrorists by offering them “big money and a new life” abroad.

That day, the Secretary of State was due to be questioned in the House of Commons and so defensive briefing was urgently prepared for him.

John Fisher, of the NIO’S Security and International Division, sent a secret memo to both Downing Street and the Secretary of State and attached a ‘line to take’ — the recommended response which Margaret Thatcher or Jim Prior should give to questions.

It was that “a number of people are completely disillusioned with the activities of the terrorists and are coming forward with information”.

He said this could place such informers or their families at risk and so, “in these exceptional cases, it is right that they should be reassured and given help to resettle and start a new life”.

However, he insisted that “money is not being offered as an incentive or a bribe, and no one is being threatened by the police”.

However, this suggestion that informants weren’t being paid routinely appears to be contradicted by another document in the same file. The undated onepage document appears to be from 1982. Marked ‘Secret’, it said: “The RUC have adequate money to pay informants and agents on a regular basis.

“In addition, the [MI5] director and co-ordinator of intelligence controls money which is used to reward those who provide good intelligence, particularly when it results in the arrest of terrorists, the prevention of murder and bombing and the discovery of arms and explosives.”

The unsigned typed note continued: “The largest sum paid out as a reward was £15,000 [equivalent to £55,000 today], which was for information which led to the arrest of a notorious PIRA gang in 1981; most rewards are considerably lower.”

It added: “Money is not offered as an incentive to give evidence in court. Money is, however, available to resettle those whose lives would be in danger if they remained in the province, because of the assistance they have given the security forces.”

The parliamentary record shows that the issue was raised in Parliament that day by Ian Paisley, who asked him to assure the chamber that “there shall be no large payment or amnesty to IRA murderers, no matter what information they are prepared to sell to the Royal Ulster Constabulary”.

Mr Prior responded that “the Chief Constable of the RUC has made it clear that people have not been offered large sums of money” and said “they are not bribed or threatened”, as suggested in his ‘line to take’.

Three years earlier, senior NIO security official Paul Buxton wrote in a secret memo of July 18, 1979, to say that the question of “rewards for information about terrorist bombings in Northern Ireland” had been “considered pretty extensively”.

He said that “a reward scheme of a sort did in fact operate between 1970 and 1974”, attaching papers which outlined the issues.

One of those papers was a February 1997 memo from Mr Buxton in which he said the Government had been “considering afresh whether the time is ripe for introducing a public reward scheme”.

It said that between 1970 and 1974 there was a reward scheme whereby £5,000 — ultimately raised to £50,000, more than £500,000 today — was offered for information “leading to the apprehension and conviction of any person on charges connected with acts of violence involving the use of explosives” and was later widened. However, the document said that only three claims were ever made, none of which were accepted, “although small ex-gratia payments were made”. It was shut in August 1974.

In 1976, security officials considered a “substantial reward scheme” in south Armagh “as a means of cracking the security of the nucleus of hardened terrorists operating there”.

The document shows that there had been significant consideration within the NIO of some of the downsides of paying informers long before their widespread use became controversial.

It said that “it could be politically damaging to pay large sums of money to informants who are probably guilty of terrorist crimes themselves, or at least are involved with terrorist organisations”.

It also noted that “the quality of evidence which has been bought with substantial sums of money may be suspect” and “it may also seem odd to pay rewards to people for acts which they are required by law to do”.

Officials decided that for any scheme to be worthwhile, it would have to provide “the lure of a significant figure” of cash, but if large sums were to be spent, it might make more sense to do so relocating informants to give them new lives after testifying in court.

A fortnight later, senior NIO official SS Brampton said in another secret memo that the three claims made to the former scheme were of the “good citizen” variety, where individuals had acted out of a sense of civic duty.

In one case, the informant “had actually chased the bomber into the hands of the security forces”; in another, “three men acting together had apprehended the bomber”; in the third, “the man, who had courageously given evidence in court, was obliged to give up his job and flee the country”. He said that in all cases these people would have acted as they did regardless of the reward.

He added that Secretary of State Merlyn Rees had in August 1974 terminated the scheme, expressing “deep concern about the whole concept of buying information on this scale. He took the view that information which had to be bought in this way was suspect [and] that the higher the price, the greater the suspicion”.

Mr Bampton said: “The RUC, like all police forces, does pay for information in the ordinary course of criminal investigation, but this is usually at a modest level and without attendant publicity.”

Mr Bampton’s memo was drawn up in response to a suggestion from an individual, whose name has been blacked out (generally an indication that they worked for the intelligence services), to introduce a reward scheme for terrorists themselves.

He said it differed from the older scheme “in that it is designed to attract information about a particular terrorist group from someone active in the cell or on the periphery.

‘NI Secretary Rees took the view that the higher the price, the greater the suspicion’

“While there is no doubt that £50,000 or more is a small enough price to pay for the arrest of, or even a lessening of activity by, the South Armagh 20, there are […] factors which are likely to militate against the effectiveness of the scheme.”

Significantly, he identified the central dilemma: “For an informant to give any meaningful information, it is highly probable he will have been implicated in, or at least be an accessory to, the crimes. Would we attempt to offer him immunity from prosecution? If so, this would certainly add to the doubts as to the weight to be attached to his testimony.”

He also said there was a risk that one criminal would persuade another to do something “and then shop him for the reward”.

“One might thus increase terrorism — and it might not take the PIRA too long to figure it out.”