The Randalstown man who knew too much about child abuse at Kincora

FORMER BBC journalist Chris Moore has spent four decades investigating the abuse of children at a Boys’ Home in Belfast - and his deeply disturbing findings have sent shockwaves to the very heart of the British establishment.

‘Kincora: Britain’s Shame’ is a story of sexual abuse, but it also casts light on the dark forces that have conspired to cover up the identities of key players in the shocking saga.

And the author pulls no punches, deploying exclusive interviews, secret documents and whistleblowers to lift the lid on a story that has festered for years.

The tag line - ‘Mounbatten, MI5, the Belfast Boys’ Home sex abuse scandal and the British cover-up’ - underscores the scale of his ambition.

And, crucially, it also vindicates the Randalstown man who paid a terrible price for trying to lift the lid on the sordid story in the first place.

The ‘story’ began in 1980 when a newspaper reported that boys in state care at Kincora had been subjected to sexual abuse and rape by the three paedophiles who ran the hostel for two decades.

The resulting police investigation led to the convictions of six men including the three Kincora staff, each of whom was convicted and sent to prison.

That should have been the conclusion of the sex scandal that shook Northern Ireland. But, of course, it wasn’t.

Police sources told the author about a secret British intelligence operation involving the secret services, MI6 and mostly MI5, that was linked to the hostel - and was a key to the systemic failures to protect Kincora’s vulnerable residents.

Two police officers said one of the three convicted Kincora staff was an MI5 source in an operation centred on his links to unionist politicians and armed loyalist gangs.

The police officer leading the inquiry into Kincora encouraged Moore to keep digging into MI5 suggesting they were ‘obstructing’ the criminal investigation in order to conceal their secrets.

At least 19 files directly related to the home are officially ‘closed’ to the public, and in one case the order remains in place until 2085 at the earliest. In other words, long after everyone involved is dead and buried.

But one local man will be following the repercussions from the book with interest, as he has dedicated most of his life to exposing what exactly went on at Kincora - despite the risks and personal cost.

Colin Wallace was born in Randalstown in 1943 and after a stint at Ballymena Academy a career in the military was soon beckoning.

By 1961 he was commissioned into the Territorial Army, and 11 years later he joined the ranks of the UDR, rising to the rank of Captain.

But there was a second career, running in parallel.

Wallace had joined the Ministry of Defence in 1968, working as an Information Officer at the army’s Northern Ireland HQ at Thiepval Barracks.

But he was also working for 14 Intelligence Company as a member of the ultra-secret Army Psychological Operations Unit, whose job was to covertly attempt to undermine, disrupt and control Ulster’s paramilitaries.

And he excelled in his undercover work as a ‘psychological warfare specialist’. Indeed in a classified 1971 report, a senior staffer noted: “This is an officer of the highest calibre. Totally committed to the army, he demonstrates this by a devotion to duty that is truly remarkable.”

He was putting in 80-hour days, living on the base, never taking holidays. Blessed with an encyclopedic memory, he sooned carved out an indelible niche for his skills in the darkest days of the dirty war.

But, make no mistake, he was operating in a murky world.

During 1973/74 was involved in a deep undercover operation code-named Clockwork Orange.

He later alleged that it was led by a cabal of far right wingers in the security services, determined to smear British MPs. Journalists from foreign news outlets, he said, would be secretly briefed and shown forged documents purporting to discredit hand picked politicians.

By October ‘74 Wallace had had enough and refused to continue working on Clockwork Orange, and he resigned from the MoD the following year.

It has since been claimed that he jumped before he was pushed.

The local man had also been briefing the foreign press on another, all-too real, issue - Kincora.

Few were biting, however, though Wallace believed that they were blocked from on high because the leading perpetrator was a leading member of a loyalist paramilitary group and, more importantly, an undercover agent of MI5.

That man, he said, was a ‘known homosexual’ who was blackmailing people taking part in sexual activities involving children which he had initiated.

Many believe Colin Wallace was the first member of the security forces to cast a light on the thick darkness that had descended on the Boys’ Home.

In 1976 The New Statesman printed some of the allegations surrounding William McGrath and co.

But none of the other papers briefed by Wallace followed suit, and the sickening abuse continued for years.

That all changed when the Irish Independent entered the fray at the decade’s end, finally lifting the lid on the scandal.

But at that precise moment - like something from a John le Carré novel - the Randalstown man was fighting for his very freedom.

It has since come to light that intelligence officers had warned senior figures in the Ministry that ‘Wallace has both the information and the motivation to reveal the story behind Kincora’.

And for them, that was not the abuse but their role in the shocking saga.

With pressure building, an investigation was carried out by the Chief Constable of Sussex Police. It was never shown in full to Parliament, but in the summary the author noted: ‘Military sources have been frank and I am satisfied there is no substance to allegations that army intelligence had knowledge of homosexual abuse at Kincora’.

Colin Wallace was the man who knew too much.

In 1980, just as the Kincora story broke, he was arrested, charged and later convicted of manslaughter.

The court was told that the highly regarded local man had beaten antiques dealer Jonathan Lewis to death before attending a dinner party with the dead man’s wife - who was one of his colleagues.

Wallace protested his innocence, but he was to serve six years behind bars for the offence.

The conviction was eventually quashed when new evidence, including forensics, came to light.

A Home Office pathologist admitted at the Court of Appeal that he had received key scientific evidence from an ‘anonymous American security source’.

In truth, it was widely believed that he had been framed. That was certainly the view of a former Special Branch officer, who had known Wallace.

“I certainly believe Colin Wallace was ‘fitted up’ by corrupt members of the British establishment,” he said in 1998.

But Colin Wallace has remained a painful thorn in the side of those very people since then.

In February 2017 he lashed out at historical abuse inquiry findings that children cared for at Kincora were not abused by a powerful ring of paedophiles.

He spoke out after the Historical Institutional Abuse Inquiry produced its long awaited report.

Chaired by Sir Anthony Hart, and four years in the making, it looked at wider abuse allegations and examined claims surrounding the former boys home in east Belfast.

It emphatically rejected claims that the security services were aware of the child abuse and used the information to blackmail those involved.

Mr Hart said: “It was not a homosexual brothel, nor was it used by any of the security agencies as a honey pot to entrap, blackmail or otherwise exploit homosexuals.”

The retired judge added that ‘it is now time to finally lay these unfounded myths to rest’.

The report concluded ‘that Mr Wallace cannot be regarded as truthful in his accounts of what he knew about sexual abuse in Kincora or what he did with that knowledge, in 1972-1974’.

A spokeswoman for the HIA Inquiry said that it devoted 119 pages ‘examining what Mr Wallace has said about Kincora in the past’.

Diplomatically, the Randalstown man said they had ‘got it wrong in parts’.

The report may have been scathing, but there’s no doubt that there are no shortage of influential people who saw him as a man to be trusted.

Take Lieutenant Colonel Tony Yarnold, who worked with him during his time in Northern Ireland.

“Let’s face it, Colin was the lynchpin of the whole operation. He was terrific - way ahead of us in his knowledge and his readiness to work. Everyone wanted him all the time and, somehow, he was always available,” he said.

This was amplified by Ian Cameron, a senior MI5 officer attached to Army HQ Northern Ireland in the 1970s.

“It cannot be disputed that Wallace’s position within the AIS (Army Information Service) was unique; he was very much more than the head of a section.

“Wallace was undoubtedly permitted considerable latitude in regard to the manner in which he presented these themes in the course of his briefings and he also participated in the dissemination of printed IP material. His views or IP policy were listened to and respected.

“As a senior member of the AIS staff (Grade I equivalent) he had access to classified papers about information policy. He was the AIS Ulster expert.”

And that respect extended south of the border. Irish Supreme Court Judge, Mr Justice Henry Barron interviewed Wallace on a number of occasions during the Inquiry into the Dublin and Monaghan bombings and had this to say about him:

“In person, Wallace comes across as intelligent, self-assured, and possessed of a quiet yet unwavering moral conviction.

“Though he has reasons enough to be bitter - the abrupt and unjust ending of a promising career in Northern Ireland, five years spent in prison on a conviction which has since been quashed - he displays no outward signs of resentment towards individuals or institutions.

“He remains intensely loyal to his country and to the Army: insofar as he has a quarrel, it is with individuals rather than the institutions concerned. He says he believes that much of the propaganda work undertaken by Information Policy was justifiable in the interests of defeating subversives and promoting a political solution to the Troubles.

“When speaking of matters directly within his own experience, the Inquiry believes him to be a highly knowledgeable witness. His analyses and opinions, though derived partly from personal knowledge and partly from information gleaned since his time in Northern Ireland, should also be treated with seriousness and respect.”

Though now in his early 80s, Colin Wallace continues to try and set the record straight. In February 2019 he wrote to Karen Bradley, then Secretary of State for Northern Ireland, producing documents that he believed proved that three of the official inquiries into Kincora had deliberately misled Parliament. To date the questions he posed remain unanswered.

Colin Wallace’s story has undoubtedly laid the foundations for the explosive new book.

While Kincora Boys’ Home may have been wiped off the face of the earth, demolished in 2022, it remains clear that the questions arising from the abuse it saw are going nowhere.

And the publication of ‘Britain’s Shame’ will only amplify them.