Fred Holroyd
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Captain Fred Holroyd was based at the British Army's 3 Brigade HQ in mid-Ulster, Northern Ireland during the 1970s. He enlisted as a private in the Royal Artillery, and 3 years later he was commissioned into the Royal Corps of Transport. He volunteered for the Special Military Intelligence unit (MI6) in Northern Ireland in 1969, and he was trained at the Joint Services School of Intelligence. Once his training was finished, he was stationed in Portadown, where, for two and a half years up to 1975, he ran a series of intelligence operations.
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[edit] Collusion Allegations
He alleged a policy of assassinations and collusion between British Army Intelligence and individuals active within Loyalist & Republican paramilitary groups in Northern Ireland.
Fred Holroyd has claimed that during the mid 1970s the Special Air Service SAS used the cover name, "4 Field Survey Troop, Royal Engineers" during operations. This modus operandi was introduced in 1973 and abandoned in 1975. Fred Holroyd claimed this was an SAS unit under cover at the Royal Engineers' base at Castledillon, Armagh. Holroyd claims to have worked with the members of this unit and that members were told that it was a NITAT (Northern Ireland Training and Tactics Team), whose personnel were "former, serving or recently trained"[1] SAS soldiers, with the commanders being infantry officers attached to the SAS. One of these was Captain Robert Nairac, described as, "seconded to 14th Intelligence" [2](14 Intelligence Company).
He also added to allegations that a cabal of British intelligence operatives from MI5 & MI6 along with figures from the British establishment had been involved in a plot to destabilise/overthrow the British Prime Minister Harold Wilson through a secret organization known as "Group 13".
Holroyd's allegations surfaced again in a New Statesman article written by Duncan Campbell in 1984. His allegations helped form the basis for the 1998 Ken Loach film Hidden Agenda.
[edit] Involvement with Ken Livingstone MP
Labour Member of Parliament in the UK, Ken Livingstone, took up the case of Fred Holroyd, and used his maiden speech to highlight Holroyd's allegations.
"During my election campaign in Brent, East, there was an unusual public meeting, An individual was invited to it who has never been a Socialist, who will never been prepared to vote Labour and who thinks that the Tory party is the natural governing party of Britain.
He was invited to share a platform with myself and some of the relative's of those who have been subjected to miscarriages of justice by the British courts over issues of bombing here in Britain. We invited, Mr. Fred Holroyd. For those who do not know, Mr. Holroyd served in Northern Ireland with distinction. As I said, he is no Socialist. He comes from a military family. He went to a Yorkshire grammar school. His whole objective in life was to serve in the British Army. He believed in it totally. He enlisted as a private in the gunners, and 3 years later he was commissioned into the Royal Corps of Transport. He volunteered for the Special Military Intelligence unit in Northern Ireland when the present troubles began, and he was trained at the Joint Services School of Intelligence. Once his training was finished, he was stationed in Portadown, where, for two and a half years, he ran a series of intelligence operations...
..When he was recruited as an MI6 officer, he said of them that they were not disagreeable; their ethics were reasonable; they were seeking a political solution. His complaint, which eventually led to his removal from the Army and an attempt to discredit him, which has been largely successful, was made when the MI6 operation was taken over by MI5 in 1975- by many of the same people who are dealt with in Peter Wright's book [Spycatcher], and many of the same people who are alleged to have ben practising treason against the elected Labour Government of the time. He said that once the MI5 took over the reasonable ethics of MI6 were pushed aside by operatives in the intelligence world who supported the views of Mr. Kitson [Brigadier Frank Kitson] and the policies and tactics of subverting the subverters. I recommend Brigadier Kitson's words to those who are not aware of them. His attitude was to create a counter-terror group, to have agents provocateur, to infiltrate and to run a dirty tricks campaign in an attempt to discredit the IRA.
Mr. Holroyd continued to believe that what he was doing was in the best interests of the British state until early in 1975, when Captain Robert Nairac, who, as many hon. Members will know, was later murdered by the IRA, went into his office, fresh from a cross-border operation-- something that of course is completely illegal- and showed him the colour photographs that had been taken by Captain Nairac's team. Captain Nairac had crossed the border with some volunteers from the UVF. He had assassinated John Francis Green, an active member of the IRA who was living south of the border. As an agent of the British Government operating across the border as an assassin he had brought back photographs as proof of that operation.
When Captain Nairac showed the photographs, Mr. Holroyd started to object, not because he objected to an active member of IRA being assassinated in a highly illegal cross-border raid but because he realised that once the British state started to perpetrate such methods there was no way that eventually Britain would not alienate vast sections of the community and eventually lose the struggle for the hearts and minds of the Irish people.
Holroyd then started to obect to the use of such illegal methods by MI5 officers. He was immediately shuffled to one side by the expedient method of being taken to a mental hospital and being declared basically unfit for duty. During the month he spend in the British mental hospital, the three tests that were administered to him were completely successfully passed...
..What is particularly disturbing is that what looked at the time like a random act of maniacal violence and sectarian killing now begins to take on a much more sinister stance. It begins to emerge that Captain Robert Nairac is quite likely the person who organised the killing of the three Miami showband musicians. The evidence for that allegation is forensic and members of the UVF are prepared to say that they were members of the UVF gang who actually undertook the murder of the Miami showband musicians. The evidence is quite clear. The same gun that was used by Captain Nairac on his cross-border trip to assassinate John Francis Green was used in the Miami showband massacre".[3]
Livingstone also asked a series of questions in the parliament session about Holroyds treatment following his allegations of collusion between British Army Intelligence and Loyalist paramilitaries.
[edit] Life after the military
Following the surfacing of these allegations he claims to have been forcibily retired from the British Intelligence Service MI6 and placed in a mental health institution. Wallace has campaigned since then to have the Ministry of Defence admit that he was wrongly institutionalised.
Holroyd is known to have served on the side of the Government forces in Rhodesia.
Fred Holroyd wrote the book War without Honour, published in 1989.[4]
[edit] Barron report into Dublin and Monaghan Bombings
Holroyd gave evidence to Mr Justice Henry Barron during his inquiry into the Dublin and Monaghan Bombings of 17 May, 1974.
Barron was asked about a seeming contradiction in Holroyds input to the report during public hearings;
"Since that time Captain Holroyd has persistently accused the British army of having engaged in serious unlawful acts, including murder and kidnapping, of encouraging assisting Loyalist paramilitaries in the commission of such acts, of recruiting agents from the ranks of the security forces of this State and of acts of gross incompetence which resulted in loss of life".[5]
"For that reason, his [Holroyds] claims justify careful scrutiny. At the same time it must be acknowledged that Holroyd is, in some ways, a compromise source".[6]
When asked what he meant by "compromise source", Barron replied:
"There are many reports on him suggesting that he is a Walter Mitty type. That is probably the easiest way of explaining it... We said his detail was totally unreliable but the substance related to events which took place."[7]
[edit] FootNotes
- ^ Ambush: the war between the SAS and the IRA, James Adams, Robin Morgan & Anthony Bambridge, Pan, London 1988 ISBN 0-330-30893-9
- ^ Ambush: the war between the SAS and the IRA, James Adams, Robin Morgan & Anthony Bambridge, Pan, London 1988 ISBN 0-330-30893-9
- ^ Excerpt from Ken Livingstone's maiden speech Hansard Parliamentary Debates volume 118, 7th July 1987.
- ^ War without Honour: True Story of Military Intelligence in Northern Ireland, Fred Holroyd, Medium, 1989 ISBN 1-872398-00-6
- ^ Page 179, paragraph 2, of the Interim Barron report 2003
- ^ Page 179, paragraph 5, of the Interim Barron report 2003
- ^ 3 February 2004 Sub-Committee on the Barron Report public hearings
