The Shankill Butchers

by Martin Dillon

  Nowadays the exchange of information between RUC Divisions is collated on a very professional basis with a collator for each area passing information to other Divisions. All information is then fed into a centralized computer. Murphy demonstrated that he knew exactly how the police operated and he was aware, in my view, of the failings within the system.

  The Nationalist/Republican analysis will conflict sharply with the theses that mistakes were made by the police simply because of a failure of communication. The alternative thesis may well suggest a sinister motivation though other events to be described in this book will provide the substance and truth for my argument that the failure to connect the McQuaid/Fletcher episodes was because of human error. There is reason to believe, as I now do, that if Jimmy Nesbitt and his team in C Division had been in possession of the facts of the McQuaid killing they would immediately have connected it with the Fletcher incident. Possibly the most vital piece of information provided by Deirdre McQuaid concerned the use of a black taxi. The fact that this was not immediately part of the analysis of the murder squad at C Division is a sad reflection on the manner in which information was evaluated and processed.

  I asked Jimmy Nesbitt about this matter and specifically for the number of Moore’s taxi. He was unable to supply this information because the files relating to that period would not now be available in relation to car numbers. He also pointed out that the Motor Tax Office, which is now computerized, would be unlikely to have the information I required. I discovered this to be the case. My reason for seeking the registration of the taxi was to confirm whether Deirdre McQuaid was supplying vital evidence when she told them she believed it began with the letters DIY. If this had proved accurate, then the police had the opportunity to trace it. It will now never be possible to know whether Deirdre McQuaid had been correct, as Moore’s taxi was later destroyed in a junkyard.

  7

  Murder Most Foul

  On 6 February 1976 two teenage gunmen, members of the Provisional IRA, laid an ambush for policemen patrolling the Cliftonville Road. As two constables were making their way along the road before midday, they were shot from close range. One died instantly and the other died in hospital two days later. On the evening of the shooting Murphy and Moore went to the Long Bar on the Shankill Road where they were served drinks by Robert ‘Basher’ Bates, who was working there as a part-time barman. The conversation between the three centred on the shooting of the two policemen, and at Murphy’s instigation they arrived at the conclusion that it demanded retaliatory action from them. Murphy had no love for the police, but the fact that most members of the RUC are drawn from the Protestant community encouraged him to see the attack as one on his own kind. This belief has been present in the thinking of Loyalist paramilitaries since the beginning of the present Troubles and has never been fully recognized by the Provisional IRA. The non-recognition of this reality by the Provisionals when waging their campaign of terror is conveniently to ignore the racism and sectarianism of their own ethos, which indirectly gives impetus to Loyalist paramilitaries who slay Catholics.

  The Provisionals credit their campaign with the inheritance of romantic Nationalism and ideological imagery and ignore the fact that the shooting of a policeman or a UDR man is a direct blow aimed at the community which shares the same part of the island of Ireland as they themselves. They refuse to accept that their actions in this respect breed an atmosphere in which gangs such as the Shankill Butchers develop and thrive. No doubt members of the Nationalist community might argue that my analysis provides a convenient explanation for Murphy’s attitudes and actions. I would say, instead, that many of Murphy’s actions must be evaluated in terms of the extreme prejudice which had developed within him since childhood and which found an outlet in acts so violent that they could only have been committed by a psychopath. His psychopathy made him unique only in the methods he chose for slaying his victims. Around him were others, on both sides of the conflict, who could be described as temporarily abnormal; some simply misfits who, thanks to the war situation, could achieve a degree of acceptance within their own community. Murphy sought to glamorize violence by the use of fear and power. In contrast there were others, such as Spence, who were developing an ethos rooted in a concept of Britishness rather than Irishness. This ethos was in opposition to Murphy’s ‘For God and Ulster’ mentality which contained the belief that Ulster was Protestant, and Catholic was evil.

  Moore and Bates, Murphy’s companions in the Long Bar the evening the two policemen were killed, shared his intense hatred of Catholics. The three were exemplars of the brutalizing effect of prejudice but equally they had themselves contributed to that process by their dehumanization of the enemy. After discussing how to retaliate for the deaths of the policemen it was decided they should take Moore’s taxi and drive to the area surrounding Library Street, where they had apprehended Crossan. When Moore later described how the decision to retaliate was taken he said they simply got into the taxi to travel across the city to buy chips. Moore frequently relied on this explanation when later he talked to detectives. It was as if he wished to give the impression that the killings just happened, and were not premeditated. It was the defence of a mass murderer seeking to distance himself from the atrocity.

  The three left the bar and went down the Shankill Road, with Moore driving and Murphy and Bates in the back seat of the cab. As they turned into Millfield, Murphy continually issued directions to Moore on which route to take so that they circumnavigated the area. It was Moore’s task to spot anyone who happened to be walking in the neighbourhood and relay the information to the rear of the cab. The person seen on this occasion was some fifty yards away and was described by Moore as ‘a wee man’. He was in fact five feet four inches tall, and was wearing a short overcoat with a fur collar, and blue trousers. He was fifty-five-year-old Thomas Joseph Quinn, a road-sweeper by trade. Quinn was a lonely man and a heavy drinker who was to be seen frequently wandering home drunk or walking aimlessly through the city centre. Those who knew him regarded him as a sad and pathetic person who had mentally disintegrated after the death of his wife in 1974. He had a son and daughter who rarely visited him and he did not converse with his neighbours. On the night in question he was making his way home after drowning his sorrows for hours in a city bar.

  Murphy instructed Moore to drive alongside the unsteady figure on the pavement, who was oblivious to the sound of the approaching taxi. When the taxi drew alongside Quinn, Murphy leaped out and hit the drunken man over the head with a wheel brace, sending him sprawling onto the roadway. Murphy called to Bates to help him lift the injured man into the taxi. Bates obeyed and Quinn, who was moaning in pain, was lifted bodily and placed on the floor of the cab, which was then driven off by Moore in the general direction of the Shankill Road.

  At Murphy’s command, Moore drove to the Lawnbrook Social Club. I have since discovered that they stopped outside Murphy’s home in Brookmount Street where Murphy got out, went into the house, and returned within two minutes. It seems reasonable to assume that they stopped to collect the murder weapon though this was never admitted by Moore or Bates when they were later questioned by detectives. On the way to the Lawnbrook Club, Murphy and Bates administered a severe beating to Quinn which culminated in multiple injuries but was not sufficient to cause death.

  When the taxi finally came to a halt outside the Lawnbrook, Murphy got out and went into the club, where he spoke to Benny ‘Pretty Boy’ Edwards who was working there as a part-time barman. According to Edwards’ testimony, Murphy told him that they had an IRA man outside in Moore’s taxi and ‘we’re gonna do the bastard so how would you like to come along and help us?’ Edwards accepted the invitation without question and quickly sought permission to leave the bar.

  Edwards’ first impression of Quinn when he joined Murphy in the taxi was that he was ‘seeing a small boy’. This was due to Quinn’s diminutive figure and the fact that his face and head were covered in blood and his features disto
rted to such an extent that his age was not apparent. With Edwards on board, Moore drove towards the Glencairn housing estate via the Shankill Road, taking a route which provided a clear view ahead and the opportunity for a quick getaway should an Army or police road-block be encountered. Why did Murphy and the others feel they could travel this route and take the chances they took, unless they believed there was little surveillance in the area? After all, they were four men in a car with a butcher’s knife and a badly beaten man. It may have been that the security forces did not have the manpower to cover the area properly at that time. Two hundred black taxis travelled the Shankill every day, though it must be said that any vehicle, particularly taxis of this type which had been used previously in acts of terrorism, would surely have attracted attention. The question is seemingly unanswerable. There are no statistics available or security forces’ files to indicate the degree of surveillance which existed in the Shankill area at that time. One can only conclude that terrorism dictated that there was never sufficient manpower to police the district properly, that Murphy and his associates were adept at finding gaps in the surveillance which did exist, or that the security forces failed to recognize the manner in which the killers operated and the fact that they were so close at hand. It is impossible to find out whether there were patrols on the Shankill on the nights the Butchers operated or whether manpower on those occasions was not available. Murphy and his associates knew intimately the geography of their area and it is possible that there were occasions when they set out in search of victims but had to abort their missions because of the presence of security forces. One such mission undertaken by the gang will be dealt with later in this chapter and it illustrates that Murphy would abandon an operation for several days until he was sure that there would be no Army or police presence to thwart his plans.

  Murphy, Bates and Edwards beat Quinn as they travelled towards Glencairn but, before they completed their journey, Murphy produced a butcher’s knife and drew it across Quinn’s neck, making an incision eight centimetres long which cut the subcutaneous tissue below the jaw, causing bleeding but not death. Murphy used the knife several times in this manner before the taxi stopped at Forthriver Way in the Glencairn estate, at which point he placed the bloody knife in an inside pocket of his leather coat and pointed to a gap in a line of cast-iron railings several yards from the taxi. He suggested they carry Quinn through the railings where they would be out of sight of the roadway and of anyone who happened to pass or be looking out of a bedroom window. Bates, Murphy and Edwards lifted the now unconscious Quinn from the taxi and Murphy told Moore to drive around the estate for five to ten minutes as a means of avoiding suspicion should there be a security force patrol in the vicinity. Moore obeyed the instruction and said he would return to pick up the others beside the gap in the railings. Quinn was carried through the railings and down a narrow path which led to a shallow, muddy bank. Murphy and Bates held the victim’s upper body, and Edwards held his feet, but after travelling twenty yards in this fashion Edwards became tired. Quinn was dragged for a further ten yards until they were all out of sight of the roadway, though there was sufficient light from street lamps to allow them to see clearly. Quinn was laid on his back on a grassy bank and Murphy produced the knife and hacked at his throat while Bates and Edwards looked on. The wound which finally killed Thomas Joseph Quinn took considerable physical effort because it extended back to his spine. There is every reason to believe that Bates and Edwards participated in the final demise of Quinn because of the number of wounds to his throat. Murphy had brought along Edwards for the express purpose of ‘blooding’ him. Bates and Edwards, however, later attributed the throatcutting to Murphy. This was recorded in police interview notes in which they refused to name him as the killer but simply said that Quinn’s throat had been cut by a man ‘they did not wish to name’.

  Moore drove around the Glencairn estate as instructed and returned to collect the others at the specified time, which was approximately 1.00 A.M. on 7 February. The four of them travelled to Murphy’s house where they all washed out the inside of the taxi to remove the blood stains and Edwards and Bates were supplied with a change of clothing. Murphy took their bloodstained clothes saying that he would have them laundered and returned within several days.

  At 7.00 P.M. that day Jim Campbell, then deputy editor of the Sunday News in Belfast, was sitting in his office when he received a telephone message from a male caller claiming to be ‘Major Long of the Young Militants’. The caller told Jim Campbell that the body of a ‘militant Republican’ could be found on a grass bank at Forthriver Way and that the killing was in retaliation for the murder of the policemen on the Cliftonville Road the previous day. The caller was Lenny Murphy and by claiming responsibility for the killing of Quinn in the name of a non-existent grouping he was distancing himself from the crime in the event of questions being asked by the UVF leadership. The use of the pseudonym ‘Major Long’ was a curious choice since the previous evening he had been drinking in the Long Bar with Bates and Moore. A journalist later described the use of the bar’s name as a ‘vital piece of evidence’, which he alleged was ignored by the police. It should not be assumed, however, that if Nesbitt and his team had connected the Long Bar with the use of the pseudonym ‘Major Long’ it would have led them to the Butchers. Bates worked there on a part-time basis but most of the meetings with Murphy were held in the Brown Bear or the Lawnbrook. Additionally, the Long Bar was frequented by many members of Loyalist paramilitary organizations and it would have taken considerable luck to have eliminated everyone who drank there with the exception of Bates. At this stage of the campaign by the Butchers, luck was at a premium as far as Nesbitt and his team were concerned. The Butchers did not leave witnesses and the only witness who might have proved crucial, Deirdre McQuaid, was not part of the C Division investigation.

  Quinn’s killing confirmed Nesbitt’s growing fear that he was dealing with a ‘most chilling dimension to terrorism’. He says: ‘Suddenly there was a fear in my mind that we were possibly dealing with a maniac or maniacs who would do this again and again. The worst thing was that there were no clues. We didn’t even know where Quinn was picked up and, despite public pleas, no one came forward to tell us they had seen him in the hours before he died. In Glencairn we talked to many people but no one saw anything. It was the usual story of a brick wall.’

  A forensic science team visited the scene of the murder but nothing unusual originated from their investigation. The body of Quinn was found lying face downwards, indicating that he was rolled over and down the shallow bank after his throat was cut. The wet and muddy conditions made a thorough examination of the scene difficult. A comb was found near the deceased but ownership was never established. Fingerprint experts carefully examined the area but came up with nothing, and footprints were also examined and copied but all to no avail. Nesbitt needed only to look at the body to deduce that it was another sectarian killing but the brutality of the killers made the difference. He also knew very quickly that he was dealing with more than one person because of the number of footprints in the vicinity of the crime, the physical effort required to transport the body to the site of the murder and the extent of the physical injuries inflicted on the victim.

  The murder of Quinn happened at a time when Murphy was planning the mass murder of Catholics in one incident. He contemplated killing a group of Catholic workmen in retaliation for the murder by Provisionals of ten Protestant workmen on a bus, in what has become known as the ‘Kingsmill Massacre’. This occurred after the killing of five Catholics by the UVF in January 1976. Within one week of the murders at Kingsmill in County Armagh, Murphy had laid the groundwork for an attack on a lorry which ferried Catholic and, unknown to him, Protestant workmen to Corry’s Timber Yard in West Belfast’s Springfield Road.

  Murphy received a tip-off from an associate who worked in the timber yard that Catholic workmen from the company travelled on a truck to Corry’s each morning and their route to
ok them through the Shankill district. Murphy borrowed Moore’s taxi every morning for three weeks and followed the lorry as it made its way from Carlisle Circus on the Antrim Road to the Springfield Road, travelling for part of the way along the Shankill, where the lorry driver stopped at the same time each morning to buy a newspaper. On most of his trips Murphy travelled alone, but on a few occasions he was accompanied by either Moore, Bates or Mr A.

  The lorry picked up Protestant and Catholic workers at Carlisle Circus, some of them seated in the cab and others on the open area at the rear of the vehicle. It is conceivable that Murphy knew there were Protestants aboard and this did not concern him. His fanatical hatred frequently obscured his judgement and allowed him to dismiss any petty hindrances which might arise, such as the fact that Protestants might have to die to enable him to kill a large number of Catholics.

  He decided that if he was to attack the lorry successfully the place to do it was outside the newsagent’s shop known locally as Adair’s, which was situated at the corner of Cambrai Street and the Shankill Road. The day before the killing of Quinn, Murphy called a meeting with Moore, Bates and Mr A. and told them ‘the hit’ on the lorry would take place the following morning at approximately 7.45 A.M., when the vehicle stopped outside Adair’s. He instructed Moore and Bates to travel in Moore’s taxi to his house for 7.00 A.M., where they would find him with Mr A. and the four of them would drive together to a ‘safe house’ to collect weapons.

  The following morning everything was arranged but the attack on the lorry was aborted because of the presence of soldiers in Cambrai Street. The lorry did not make another journey until Monday, but it was in the intervening period that Murphy kidnapped Quinn and murdered him.