Vincent Heatherington
Vincent Heatherington, a Catholic from West Belfast, was abducted and killed by the IRA on 6 July 1976.[1]
In 1974, he and Myles McGrogan were remanded in Crumlin Road jail, accused of the killings of of Constables Malcolm John Ross and Brian Edmund Bell.[2]
They came under interrogation from the IRA in the prison, who did not believe they were members. According to Brendan Hughes, Heatherington eventually admitted to being an informer:
- He told us more about the group - they were based in Holywood Barracks, they were supplied with money, with women, along with their handlers. They were allowed to come and go as they pleased. The Special Branch initially employed them but .. they were then handed over to the military - but the backbone of the operation was British Intelligence. He had been taken away for training in Essex; they lived in a large country house. They were given weapons training, explosives training and anti-interrogation training and sent back.[3]
Heatherington named a number of IRA men as informers, sparking a wave of interrogations, before admitting he was giving out disinformation.[4]
One IRA interrogator later told journalist Martin Dillon that they were seeking to "to discover if suddenly the MRF, which we thought we smashed, was back in business on a grander scale."[5] In fact, the MRF had been re-organised as the Special Reconnaissance Unit (SRU). If Heatherington was working for military intelligence, the SRU may be the most likely candidate.
According to Dillon, Heatherington told the IRA a Protestant member of his group, Gregory Brown had been involved in the killing of UDA leader Tommy Herron. Dillon comments:
- Considering this was allied to the Dublin bombing theories and the statement that the IRA did not bomb the Catholic bar in Corporation Street, one could validly suggest that all the stories Heatherington gave were convenient fabrications. However, because the stories were fashioned to equate with IRA theories, mythology and prejudice, the Provos were more likely to be susceptible to them.[6]
Heatherington was eventually removed by the authorities one night to another wing of the jail, later used to hold paramilitary 'supergrass' informers.[7]
Hughes would appear to be a key source for a similar account of this episode in Ed Moloney's A Secret History of the IRA and perhaps also for the account in Martin Dillon's, The Dirty War.[8][9]
Heatherington and McGrogan were acquitted of the killings of Constables Ross and Bell in 1975.[10]
Hughes regarded Heatherington, McGrogan and another man, James Green as part of the same unit. All were shot dead by the IRA, Heatherington in July 1976, McGrogan in April 1977, and Green in May 1977.[11]
Notes
- ↑ David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney, Chris Thornton and David McVea, Lost Lives, Mainstream Publishing, 2004, p. 660.
- ↑ David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney, Chris Thornton and David McVea, Lost Lives, Mainstream Publishing, 2004, p. 660.
- ↑ Ed Moloney, Voices from the Grave: Two Men's War in Ireland, Faber and Faber, 2010, p.179.
- ↑ Ed Moloney, Voices from the Grave: Two Men's War in Ireland, Faber and Faber, 2010, p.182.
- ↑ Martin Dillon, The Dirty War, Arrow, 1991, pp.81.
- ↑ Martin Dillon, The Dirty War, Arrow, 1991, pp.85.
- ↑ Ed Moloney, Voices from the Grave: Two Men's War in Ireland, Faber and Faber, 2010, p.182.
- ↑ Ed Moloney, A Secret History of the IRA, Penguin, 2002, p.140.
- ↑ Martin Dillon, The Dirty War, Arrow, 1991, pp.75-85.
- ↑ David McKittrick, Seamus Kelters, Brian Feeney, Chris Thornton and David McVea, Lost Lives, Mainstream Publishing, 2004, p. 660.
- ↑ Ed Moloney, Voices from the Grave: Two Men's War in Ireland, Faber and Faber, 2010, p.182.
