The attack was one of a number to be investigated by the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) in 2010. It found that a Browning pistol used by the gunmen had been given to them by the police. UDA quartermaster and police agent William Stobie had handed the gun to police and the police had given it back to him. Police “may have thought they had tampered with it to prevent it from being used”. According to the HET report this operation “would have required both the authority of a senior police officer and a recovery plan, generally short-term and where possible supported by the security forces within a short period of time. Clearly in this case, there was a significant failure and the repercussions were tragic and devastating”. The gun was, the report continued, also used in other UDA killings.[24]
Alex Maskey, a Sinn Féin MLA for the area, commented that “the finding by the HET that the Browning pistol used by the UDA in this attack was handed back to them by the RUC will come as no surprise to the people of the Lower Ormeau area who have long known that a high degree of collusion took place in this attack”.[24]
Officers from the HET were told by police that the assault rifle used in the attack had been “disposed of”. However, it was later discovered on display in the Imperial War Museum.[25]
This, or perhaps another weapon used/confiscated/returned was one provided by the father of emma little pengelly, smuggled in under the watchful eye of mi5, psni, etc
Ah here! Journalist Hugh Jordan on radio last week talked about a senior unionist politician who would arrange middle of the night meetings with UVF\UDA leaders to encourage them to step up their campaigns.
David Ervine often criticised unionist politicians for their hypocrisy, condeming violence in public while promoting it behind the scenes.
It’s the Unionist parties I most despise. Middle to upper class individuals keen to keep things as they are - no matter what. Even if it means selling out their own people. Same is happening now.
Sure Paisley was stoking violence for years. Willie McCrea stood beside King Rat and proclaimed them a hero. M
My point is that those politicians deliberately stoked and intervened in violence to keep things as they are, instead of doing what politicians should and make things better for the people stuck in the Shankill Road - in that sense they ran away.
2002 - Dissident republicans are believed to be behind a bomb attack at an army training centre in Co Derry which left a civilian security guard critically injured
