Ken Barrett
Encyclopedia
Ken Barrett is a Northern Irish
former loyalist
paramilitary. A leading figure within the Ulster Defence Association
(UDA), Barrett has been at the centre of allegations about collusion between loyalists and the British
security forces during the Troubles
.
and attended the same school as future leader Johnny Adair
, Somerdale Secondary School on the Ballygomartin Road (Barrett was, however, a few years above Adair). Barrett joined the UDA some time in the early to mid 1980s and was part of the West Belfast Brigade's
B Company which covered the Woodvale area at the top of the Shankill. Barrett quickly gained a reputation within the west Belfast UDA as one of their most zealous gunmen. According to Henry McDonald
and Jim Cusack, Barrett became one of Special Branch
's paid informers within the UDA in the late 1980s.
According to a fellow UDA member at the time, interviewed by David Lister and Hugh Jordan and identified by them only as "Davy", he and Barrett had collaborated on a number of killings at the time, including that of Paddy McAllister in August 1986, Terry McDaid in May 1988, Gerard Slane in September 1988, and Eamon Quinn in February 1990. The latter killing in particular was the handiwork of Barrett as he had shot the wounded Quinn several times in the head and stomach after he had initially been wounded by "Fat" Jackie Thompson of C Company.
One police detective described Barrett as a "compulsive gambler" and one of the "most cold-blooded killers he had ever met".
, a Catholic solicitor alleged by loyalists to have links to the Provisional IRA (PIRA), which was to shape his future. According to the aforementioned "Davy", he had joined with Barrett and Adair on the night of the killing (12 February 1989), to hijack a car from a taxi driver in Glencairn. He claimed that Barrett then drove the car to the Finucane family home and, whilst he sat outside in the driver's seat, Adair and "Davy" forced their way inside and fired fourteen shots in order to kill Finucane. The UDA claimed the killing soon afterwards, describing it as "the execution of Pat Finucane the PIRA officer, not the solicitor".
had been arrested and as convention dictated he had to vacate the brigadiership whilst in custody so command passed to Tommy Irvine. Before long however, Irvine was also arrested as part of the Stevens inquiries and so Barrett was promoted to the top job. Barrett, however proved to be an ineffectual leader and before long he was pushed aside in favour of Billy Kennedy, Tommy Lyttle's brother-in-law and the man chosen by the former brigadier as his successor. Eventually Jim Spence
would emerge as brigadier with Adair as military commander as power passed into the hands of the Lower Shankill's C Company. Despite being sidelined however Barrett remained close to the new leadership and was frequently recorded as being in the company of Johnny Adair around 1990 and 1991 by police surveillance files. Indeed on 17 January 1991 Barrett shot and wounded Thomas McCreery, a former hitman for the UDA's North Belfast Brigade who had gone freelance as a drug dealer and whose activities were threatening the West Belfast Brigade's own expanding drugs empire.
(RUC) officer who spent much of his career investigating the activities of the UDA in West Belfast, that he had fired shots into Finucane as he lay on the ground. Other police officers serving at the time recalled Barrett as a braggard, who regularly boasted to them that he had killed ten people. The tape upon which the confession was made had disappeared in the meantime however. Lister and Jordan suggest that this, rather than the late 1980s, was the point at which Barrett was taken on as a Special Branch
informer.
The evidence provided by Barrett as an informer saw him resettled in England
as part of a witness protection scheme. His involvement in providing information on the activities of his fellow UDA members had become common knowledge with graffiti appearing on the Shankill denouncing him as a "big nose, big mouth tout". He was taken from Belfast by the Stevens team after fellow informer William Stobie
was killed by the UDA in 2001.
's documentary series Panorama
examining the Finucane murder. Barrett was shown telling the programme that he had been involved in the killing and the documentary reignited the furore over the issue allegations of collusion between the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries. In the documentary Barrett claimed that the murder had initially been suggested by Jim Spence of C Company and that Spence had introduced Barrett to a contact in Special Branch who had informed Barrett that Finucane controlled the PIRA's finances. Barrett also claimed that an RUC roadblock had been set up specifically to help the killers that night, adding that "Finucane would have been alive today if the peelers [police] hadn't interfered".
Barrett was arrested for the murder of Pat Finucane in England in late May 2003 after he had boasted to two undercover policemen, posing as international drug dealers as part of a sting operation, that he had "fucking massacred" Finucane. Johnny Adair, who had been eliminated from the UDA in 2003, had hoped to use the Finucane trial to push for his own return as he believed that his arch rival Jim Spence would be revealed in the course of the trial as an agent of the British government, something Adair had maintained in his criticism of Spence. According to Ian S. Wood, Spence called on the help of UDA brigadier Mo Courtney
in an attempt to secure Barrett's co-operation in avoiding as long a case as possible. Wood claimed that Spence had promised Courtney a substantial sum of money to "lean on" Barrett, with both men being held on remand in Maghaberry
at the time. In secret recordings played at his trial he described his feelings after killing Finucane, "I lost no sleep over it. All is fair in love and war. I have to be honest, I whacked a few people in the past". Barrett pleaded guilty to the murder as well as eleven other charges and as a result only briefly appeared on the stand with Spence's name not mentioned in his short testimony. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of twenty two years.
Despite the recommendation that Barrett serve a minimum 22 years the Sentence Review Commission
endorsed his case for early release and he was freed from Maghaberry, to which he had been transferred, in May 2006. Barrett left Northern Ireland immediately after his release.
Northern Ireland
Northern Ireland is one of the four countries of the United Kingdom. Situated in the north-east of the island of Ireland, it shares a border with the Republic of Ireland to the south and west...
former loyalist
Ulster loyalism
Ulster loyalism is an ideology that is opposed to a united Ireland. It can mean either support for upholding Northern Ireland's status as a constituent part of the United Kingdom , support for Northern Ireland independence, or support for loyalist paramilitaries...
paramilitary. A leading figure within the Ulster Defence Association
Ulster Defence Association
The Ulster Defence Association is the largest although not the deadliest loyalist paramilitary and vigilante group in Northern Ireland. It was formed in September 1971 and undertook a campaign of almost twenty-four years during "The Troubles"...
(UDA), Barrett has been at the centre of allegations about collusion between loyalists and the British
United Kingdom
The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...
security forces during the Troubles
The Troubles
The Troubles was a period of ethno-political conflict in Northern Ireland which spilled over at various times into England, the Republic of Ireland, and mainland Europe. The duration of the Troubles is conventionally dated from the late 1960s and considered by many to have ended with the Belfast...
.
Early years
Barrett was a native of the loyalist Shankill Road area of BelfastBelfast
Belfast is the capital of and largest city in Northern Ireland. By population, it is the 14th biggest city in the United Kingdom and second biggest on the island of Ireland . It is the seat of the devolved government and legislative Northern Ireland Assembly...
and attended the same school as future leader Johnny Adair
Johnny Adair
Jonathan Adair, better known as Johnny "Mad Dog" Adair is the former leader of the "C Company", 2nd Battalion Shankill Road, West Belfast Brigade of the "Ulster Freedom Fighters" . This was a cover name used by the Ulster Defence Association , an Ulster loyalist paramilitary organisation...
, Somerdale Secondary School on the Ballygomartin Road (Barrett was, however, a few years above Adair). Barrett joined the UDA some time in the early to mid 1980s and was part of the West Belfast Brigade's
UDA West Belfast Brigade
The UDA West Belfast Brigade is the section of the Northern Irish loyalist paramilitary group the Ulster Defence Association based in the western quarter of Belfast in the Greater Shankill area...
B Company which covered the Woodvale area at the top of the Shankill. Barrett quickly gained a reputation within the west Belfast UDA as one of their most zealous gunmen. According to Henry McDonald
Henry McDonald (writer)
Henry McDonald is a writer and is the Irish editor for The Observer, the sister paper of The Guardian.McDonald has written extensively about The Troubles, its precedents, its consequences, its demographics, and such. He was born in the nationalist Markets area of Belfast and attended St. Malachy's...
and Jim Cusack, Barrett became one of Special Branch
Special Branch
Special Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security in British and Commonwealth police forces, as well as in the Royal Thai Police...
's paid informers within the UDA in the late 1980s.
According to a fellow UDA member at the time, interviewed by David Lister and Hugh Jordan and identified by them only as "Davy", he and Barrett had collaborated on a number of killings at the time, including that of Paddy McAllister in August 1986, Terry McDaid in May 1988, Gerard Slane in September 1988, and Eamon Quinn in February 1990. The latter killing in particular was the handiwork of Barrett as he had shot the wounded Quinn several times in the head and stomach after he had initially been wounded by "Fat" Jackie Thompson of C Company.
One police detective described Barrett as a "compulsive gambler" and one of the "most cold-blooded killers he had ever met".
Pat Finucane killing
It was Barrett's involvement in the murder of Pat FinucanePat Finucane (solicitor)
Patrick Finucane was a Catholic Belfast solicitor killed by loyalist paramilitaries on 12 February 1989. His killing was one of the most controversial during the Troubles in Northern Ireland. Finucane came to prominence due to successfully challenging the British Government over several important...
, a Catholic solicitor alleged by loyalists to have links to the Provisional IRA (PIRA), which was to shape his future. According to the aforementioned "Davy", he had joined with Barrett and Adair on the night of the killing (12 February 1989), to hijack a car from a taxi driver in Glencairn. He claimed that Barrett then drove the car to the Finucane family home and, whilst he sat outside in the driver's seat, Adair and "Davy" forced their way inside and fired fourteen shots in order to kill Finucane. The UDA claimed the killing soon afterwards, describing it as "the execution of Pat Finucane the PIRA officer, not the solicitor".
Brigadier
As part of the fallout from the Stevens Inquiries and the series of arrests that took place during them Barrett was given the role of West Belfast Brigadier briefly. Long-serving leader Tommy LyttleTommy Lyttle
Tommy "Tucker" Lyttle , was a high-ranking Northern Irish loyalist who was a member of the Ulster Defence Association . He served as the UDA's spokesman as well as the leader of the organisation's West Belfast Brigade from 1975 until his arrest and imprisonment in 1990...
had been arrested and as convention dictated he had to vacate the brigadiership whilst in custody so command passed to Tommy Irvine. Before long however, Irvine was also arrested as part of the Stevens inquiries and so Barrett was promoted to the top job. Barrett, however proved to be an ineffectual leader and before long he was pushed aside in favour of Billy Kennedy, Tommy Lyttle's brother-in-law and the man chosen by the former brigadier as his successor. Eventually Jim Spence
Jim Spence (loyalist)
Jim Spence is a Northern Irish former loyalist activist. Spence became notorious for his time in the Ulster Defence Association , serving two spells as Brigadier in West Belfast...
would emerge as brigadier with Adair as military commander as power passed into the hands of the Lower Shankill's C Company. Despite being sidelined however Barrett remained close to the new leadership and was frequently recorded as being in the company of Johnny Adair around 1990 and 1991 by police surveillance files. Indeed on 17 January 1991 Barrett shot and wounded Thomas McCreery, a former hitman for the UDA's North Belfast Brigade who had gone freelance as a drug dealer and whose activities were threatening the West Belfast Brigade's own expanding drugs empire.
Stevens inquiries
Under interrogation in 1991 Barrett had confessed to Johnston Brown, a Royal Ulster ConstabularyRoyal Ulster Constabulary
The Royal Ulster Constabulary was the name of the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2000. Following the awarding of the George Cross in 2000, it was subsequently known as the Royal Ulster Constabulary GC. It was founded on 1 June 1922 out of the Royal Irish Constabulary...
(RUC) officer who spent much of his career investigating the activities of the UDA in West Belfast, that he had fired shots into Finucane as he lay on the ground. Other police officers serving at the time recalled Barrett as a braggard, who regularly boasted to them that he had killed ten people. The tape upon which the confession was made had disappeared in the meantime however. Lister and Jordan suggest that this, rather than the late 1980s, was the point at which Barrett was taken on as a Special Branch
Special Branch
Special Branch is a label customarily used to identify units responsible for matters of national security in British and Commonwealth police forces, as well as in the Royal Thai Police...
informer.
The evidence provided by Barrett as an informer saw him resettled in England
England
England is a country that is part of the United Kingdom. It shares land borders with Scotland to the north and Wales to the west; the Irish Sea is to the north west, the Celtic Sea to the south west, with the North Sea to the east and the English Channel to the south separating it from continental...
as part of a witness protection scheme. His involvement in providing information on the activities of his fellow UDA members had become common knowledge with graffiti appearing on the Shankill denouncing him as a "big nose, big mouth tout". He was taken from Belfast by the Stevens team after fellow informer William Stobie
William Stobie
William "Billy" Stobie was an Ulster Defence Association quartermaster and Royal Ulster Constabulary Special Branch informer who was involved in the shootings of student Brian Adam Lambert in 1987 and solicitor Pat Finucane in 1989.His 1990 admissions, to journalist Neil Mulholland, provided new...
was killed by the UDA in 2001.
Finucane trial
Barrett was interviewed for an episode of the BBCBBC
The British Broadcasting Corporation is a British public service broadcaster. Its headquarters is at Broadcasting House in the City of Westminster, London. It is the largest broadcaster in the world, with about 23,000 staff...
's documentary series Panorama
Panorama (TV series)
Panorama is a BBC Television current affairs documentary programme, which was first broadcast in 1953, and is the longest-running public affairs television programme in the world. Panorama has been presented by many well known BBC presenters, including Richard Dimbleby, Robin Day, David Dimbleby...
examining the Finucane murder. Barrett was shown telling the programme that he had been involved in the killing and the documentary reignited the furore over the issue allegations of collusion between the security forces and loyalist paramilitaries. In the documentary Barrett claimed that the murder had initially been suggested by Jim Spence of C Company and that Spence had introduced Barrett to a contact in Special Branch who had informed Barrett that Finucane controlled the PIRA's finances. Barrett also claimed that an RUC roadblock had been set up specifically to help the killers that night, adding that "Finucane would have been alive today if the peelers [police] hadn't interfered".
Barrett was arrested for the murder of Pat Finucane in England in late May 2003 after he had boasted to two undercover policemen, posing as international drug dealers as part of a sting operation, that he had "fucking massacred" Finucane. Johnny Adair, who had been eliminated from the UDA in 2003, had hoped to use the Finucane trial to push for his own return as he believed that his arch rival Jim Spence would be revealed in the course of the trial as an agent of the British government, something Adair had maintained in his criticism of Spence. According to Ian S. Wood, Spence called on the help of UDA brigadier Mo Courtney
Mo Courtney
William "Mo" Courntey was an Ulster Defence Association activist. He was a leading figure in Johnny Adair's C Company, one of the most active sections of the UDA, before later falling out with Adair and serving as West Belfast brigadier.-Early years:In the late 1970s and early 1980s Courtney was...
in an attempt to secure Barrett's co-operation in avoiding as long a case as possible. Wood claimed that Spence had promised Courtney a substantial sum of money to "lean on" Barrett, with both men being held on remand in Maghaberry
Maghaberry (HM Prison)
HMP Maghaberry was built on the site of a World War II airfield near Lisburn, Northern Ireland that was used as a transit base for the United States Army Air Force....
at the time. In secret recordings played at his trial he described his feelings after killing Finucane, "I lost no sleep over it. All is fair in love and war. I have to be honest, I whacked a few people in the past". Barrett pleaded guilty to the murder as well as eleven other charges and as a result only briefly appeared on the stand with Spence's name not mentioned in his short testimony. He was sentenced to life imprisonment with a recommendation that he serve a minimum of twenty two years.
Reaction and release
The Finucane trial outcome was met with much scepticism, notably by the Finucane family themselves who demanded, and continue to call for, a proper inquiry into the allegations of collusion surrounding the solicitor's death. Johnny Adair was equally dismissive of Barrett's guilty plea and disputed the version of events that had been provided by "Davy". According to Adair "Barrett is a bastard informer and I hate him, but he did not pull the trigger" and he added that he had not been involved either before adding that he had no intention of informing on the real guilty party.Despite the recommendation that Barrett serve a minimum 22 years the Sentence Review Commission
Sentence Review Commission
The Sentence Review Commission was established by the Northern Ireland Act 1998 and was co-chaired by Brian Currin, a South African human rights lawyer and Sir John Blelloch, a retired senior Northern Ireland Office civil servant.The Sentence Review Commissioners in Northern Ireland were appointed...
endorsed his case for early release and he was freed from Maghaberry, to which he had been transferred, in May 2006. Barrett left Northern Ireland immediately after his release.