The Shankill Butchers

by Martin Dillon

  Recent research into statements taken from witnesses suffering from trauma illustrates the difficulty police faced in trying to piece together the precise details of what actually took place. Their task was made even more difficult in this instance by the fact that the gunmen were hooded. Each witness has a vivid recollection of what they saw, but often their evidence proves to be only a fragment of the action.

  Murphy had exhibited a lack of concern about the presence of Protestants when he attacked the lorry carrying workmen. Then, as on this occasion, no action was taken against the gang for killing members of their own community. Perhaps the UVF leadership did not move against them because three members of the leadership were directly involved in the planning of the operation.

  A tragic dimension to the loss of innocent life that evening was Bates’s remark that the 40oz bottle of vodka was the fee for carrying out the slaying. The conflict, it would seem, had caused human life to be thus devalued.

  While Murphy remained in prison waiting for his trial to begin the Butchers maintained a low profile. The Chlorane Bar killing had been the result of a murder deal, one of the few, between the Brown Bear and the Windsor Bar units, and Bates had been involved in the deal. Moore and McAllister were aware of this. For whatever reason, they now decided to undertake a killing independent of Mr A. and Mr B.

  After 10.00 P.M. on 1 August Moore and McAllister set out in a borrowed black taxi in search of a Catholic victim. Moore chose the Cliftonville Road as their hunting ground. They drove from the Shankill to the Oldpark Road and along Manor Street to the Cliftonville Road. The same route had been taken by Moore and Murphy when they killed Ted McQuaid. On this occasion McAllister sat in the rear of the vehicle with a hatchet concealed inside his coat. Moore, as usual, had the task of searching for lone prey.

  As Moore and McAllister were making their way towards the Cliftonville Road, forty-nine-year-old Cornelius Neeson was leaving a bingo club in North Queen Street, where he worked as a bingo caller. Earlier that night he had kissed his wife goodbye as he left their home in Clifton Crescent. His wife remembers he was in a happy mood. As he returned home along the Cliftonville Road he cannot have been aware of the danger of the dark streets.

  Hugh Leonard Thompson Murphy who formed the ‘Shankill Butcher’ gang and was later described by journalists as Mr X or The Master Butcher. To his friends he was known as Lenny.

  Eight of the men whom Murphy chose as his gang members. The photographs were taken within prison shortly after the ‘Butchers’ were arrested. The top row of Moore and Bates contains those men who were most prominent in Murphy’s reign of terror.

  ‘Big Sam’ McAllister was an appropriate nickname by which this leading member of the ‘Butchers’ was widely known. He was six foot in height and weighed over 16 stone. He used his huge frame to intimidate those around him but particularly those innocents whom he dragged off the streets of Belfast.

  The photograph of James ‘Tonto’ Watt is published in this book for the first time. He was the UVF explosives expert who made the device which killed a ten-year-old boy.

  The Windsor Bar on Belfast’s Shankill Road which was the meeting place for Murphy’s rivals within the UVF but was also the place where murders were planned and often executed.

  The bullet-riddled lorry which Murphy mistakenly believed was being used to ferry Catholic workmen through the Shankill area. While Murphy was firing at the lorry his gun jammed and he grabbed a weapon from an accomplice and continued firing.

  One of those killed in the attack was a 51-year-old Protestant, Archibald Hanna.

  The knife marks on the hands of Gerard McLaverty were the telltale signs which eventually led detectives to a thorough investigation of McLaverty’s abduction by the Butchers and proved crucial in their capture.

  The funeral of a 54-year-old part-time UDR Sgt., Tommy Cochrane, who was kidnapped and murdered by the Provisional IRA.

  The bullet-riddled car in which Lenny Murphy met his death at the hands of a Provisional IRA hit squad.

  The mass murderer’s headstone in Carmoney Cemetery on the outskirts of Belfast. Several hundred yards from Murphy’s grave, in the same cemetery, lies the remains of one of the Butchers’ victims – Stephen McCann, who had a premonition that he would be buried in Carmoney.

  Jimmy Nesbitt, head of C Division Murder Squad and, alongside him, one of his most trusted staff, Det. Sgt. Cecil Chambers.

  Det. Inspector John Fitzsimmons who is now retired from the RUC. He was Jimmy Nesbitt’s counterpart in C Division with responsibility for ‘ordinary’ crime but he provided valuable assistance to Nesbitt’s Murder Squad.

  Nesbitt, seen here with his family at Buckingham Palace in 1980 when he was awarded the MBE in recognition of his courage and success in combating terrorism.

  Moore spotted him as he reached the Manor Street junction with the Cliftonville Road. McAllister was alerted that a victim had been found, and as Moore stopped the taxi he leaped out and struck Neeson over the head with the hatchet and then hit him repeatedly. Moore joined him, leaving the taxi’s engine running. While McAllister continued to rain blows on the defenceless Neeson, Moore kicked him viciously about the head, face and upper body. Thinking that they had killed him, they ran back to the taxi and travelled down Manor Street and eventually to the Shankill Road. A passing motorist noticed McAllister running to the taxi, but drove on. He then changed his mind and returned to the corner of Manor Street to find Neeson bleeding to death on the pavement. An ambulance was summoned but Neeson died several hours later in the Mater Hospital. The motorist was able to give an accurate description of McAllister to the police but it did not lead to an identification. Like the McQuaid murder, the Neeson killing took place in D Division and was not associated with the Butchers until some of them were caught.

  McAllister, when finally caught, made a statement to police which contained fascinating parallels with those made by Bates in respect of other crimes. Certain words and phrases were used deliberately to create an impression that the crime had been an accident and the death of the victim had never been intended. I contend, and will seek to demonstrate later, that Murphy, McAllister and Bates were so well versed in the law that they knew how to avoid making an admission of premeditated killing. In other words, they knew how to make statements which could lead to charges of manslaughter as opposed to murder and how such statements could lead to plea bargaining at the outset of a trial. I have italicized several phrases in McAllister’s statement below which illustrate this:

  I was out in a car with another fellow who I don’t wish to say. We drove down Manor Street towards the Cliftonville Road. We were looking for a Taig for a kicking. There was a hatchet in the car and I took it with me and got out of the car. As this man walked past me on his own, I hit him over the back of the head with the wooden part of the hatchet. I hit him about twice when he was down. The other fellow with me came over but didn’t hit him. We then ran to the car and drove away. We knew he was a Taig because he was walking up there. It was only meant to give him a digging. He was not meant to be killed. I don’t wish to name the other fellow. I think drink was the biggest cause of this.

  Again the killer has made an effort to suggest that the killing was unintentional. McAllister was lying when he stated he hit Neeson with only the handle of the hatchet. He also seeks to maintain Moore’s anonymity and to blame the incident on alcohol consumption. In fact, neither Moore nor McAllister were drunk on that occasion.

  When Moore was caught and questioned about the killing of Neeson he denied all knowledge of it but under intense interrogation finally admitted that he had driven the car for ‘those who did the job’. His first statement in relation to the killing of Neeson is an attempt to attribute the killing to a person whose name he does not wish to divulge:

  We had a bit of a chat and decided to go out and get a Taig and give him a bit of a digging. It was decided I would go and get a black taxi and drive us to do the job. I went to someone I know and aske
d him for the lend of his black taxi. I didn’t tell him what it was for. The other fellows were with me when I got the taxi. They got in and I drove to the Crumlin Road and finally to Manor Street. It had been said that if someone was got walking on the Cliftonville Road he would be a Taig. We saw a man walking up the Cliftonville Road. He was on his own and was just dandering along. There was no one else about. The other two fellows got out of the taxi and whaled into him, knocked him down and got stuck into him. They kicked the lights out of him. They kicked him for a couple of minutes. I swung the car round on the Cliftonville Road and faced back up Manor Street, the way I had come. The two fellows got back into the taxi and I drove to the Lawnbrook Club. The next morning I heard on the news on the wireless that the man we had done had been found at the corner of Manor Street and that he had died in the Mater Hospital. There was no guns or anything on this job. It was just a digging.

  Moore was giving up so much information at this stage that time was needed to evaluate it and, allied to that, Nesbitt was also preoccupied with constant briefings with the police interrogators. Thus, it was not until 23 May 1977, four days after the above statement was made, that he extracted the truth from Moore. The interrogations of Moore and McAllister are discussed later in this book but it is worth looking at this stage at the second statement made by Moore. It offers an insight into Moore’s deviousness and how, even when he admits his guilt, he is still cunning enough to suggest that the motivation was as described in his first statement:

  I just want to clear up a mistake about the murder of Neeson. It happened just much as I said except that there were just two of us, me and Sam. I made a mistake when I said there were two other fellows with me. I didn’t sit in the motor the way I said. I got out and gave the man a digging too. Sam hit him with the hatchet. I just kicked him. When Sam hit him over the head with the hatchet, he knocked him to the ground. When the man was lying there, Sam hit him about two or three times and kicked him and gave him a doing.

  The use of the expression ‘gave him a digging’ or gave him a ‘doing’ or ‘kicking’ has to be measured against the actual injuries inflicted on victims. In the case of Neeson, the State Pathologist’s findings were as follows:

  There was a large area of bruising and abrasion centred on the left cheek bone associated with depressed fractures of the subjacent cheek bone and adjacent orbital margin and puncture of the left eyeball. The left side of the upper lip was bruised and the lower lip was lacerated, abraded and bruised. The outer surface of the left ear was abraded and just above the ear there was a horizontal laceration of the scalp. Another laceration was situated above the right temple. Internally there was fracturing of the skull in the region of the left temple and eye and a fissured fracture crossed the skull base to the region of the right ear. The fractures were associated with laceration and bruising of the left side of the brain. Blood from the fracture had trickled down the back of the nose into the air passages and lungs. Other injuries on the body were an abrasion at the back of the left shoulder, lacerations of the first segment of the left middle finger with a fracture of the adjacent bone and a fracture of the left lower leg.

  The pathologist concluded that all the blows were delivered with considerable severity from the hatchet, and from fists and feet.

  For several months after the killing of Neeson the Butcher gang was inoperative. During drinking sessions in the Lawnbrook and the Brown Bear much of the conversation focused on the dilemma facing their leader in prison. Lenny Murphy, for his part, maintained his ‘not guilty’ plea to the day of the trial. On the second day of the case a deal was struck between the Crown Prosecutor and Murphy’s lawyers. Much to the dismay of Nesbitt and Fitzsimmons, it was apparent that the case against Murphy on two charges of attempted murder was based on what the lawyers regarded as circumstantial evidence. From the Crown point of view there were several considerations: the prospect of a lengthy and costly murder trial, after which Murphy could possibly walk free. This, in turn, could create the risk that he might also beat the charge of possession of a firearm and ammunition with intent. The Crown was offered a plea bargain by Murphy’s lawyers to the effect that if the two attempted murder charges against their client were dropped, he would plead guilty to the firearms offence. Agreement was reached between both sets of Crown Counsel and Murphy pleaded guilty to possessing a firearm and ammunition with intent. He was sentenced to twelve years’ imprisonment. The prospect of incarceration was of little concern to Murphy. He told associates that he was content to be away from the prying eyes of the Tennent Street RUC murder squad. He was sufficiently well versed in such matters to know that in reality he would only serve six of the twelve-year sentence because of the fifty per cent remission rule on sentences in Northern Ireland. The fifty per cent remission rule was introduced solely in Northern Ireland in the mid-seventies with the phasing-out of Special Category Status which was a special provision for prisoners who claimed paramilitary allegiance. The phasing-out of this provision coincided with the completion of new expensive, purpose-built H-Blocks at the Maze Prison thus making the earlier detention of prisoners in RAF Huts unnecessary. The remission rule ended special category status for new prisoners but not for those serving inmates previously designated as Special Category Status prisoners.

  The police had hoped for Murphy’s conviction on charges of attempted murder for which he would have received a life sentence. Had this been so, the fifty per cent remission rule would not have applied.

  Overall the plea bargain suited both sides. From the point of view of the Crown, the attempted murder case would have involved a long fought case demanding much public expenditure, police resources (since many police witnesses would have been required), and pressure on a Court system already overburdened with terrorist cases. In offering Murphy’s lawyers an opportunity for their client to plead guilty to the firearms offence, a great deal of effort was avoided, taking into account the fact that a lengthy case might see Murphy beat the attempted murder charge, whereas the plea bargain ensured that he was taken out of circulation, albeit for only six years. Viewed by Murphy’s Defence Counsel there was equally a risk that if their client was obliged to fight the attempted murder charge there was the possibility that he could be convicted. Defence Counsel was aware that the Crown case was not as strong as Crown lawyers would have hoped and in those circumstances the Defence sensed that the Crown would accept the opportunity to have the matter resolved quickly without incurring huge public costs. Murphy would have been consulted by his lawyers and been acquainted with the risk that a lengthy hearing could lead to a guilty verdict, but that a plea to the lesser charge would remove that possibility. In this type of issue there is a gamble for the Defence and it is likely in this case that Murphy, who witnessed many trials in Crumlin Road Courthouse, was unwilling to test the Crown case in a trial. To Murphy six years of a twelve-year sentence was preferable to being found guilty of the firearms offence, and a lengthy sentence in the event of being found guilty of the much more serious charge of attempted murder. Additionally, six years in prison was nothing to hardened criminals such as Murphy. He knew that inside prison he would be treated with respect, if not like a hero, and he would be away from the prying eyes of Nesbitt and his team. Leaving his wife did not seem to matter. His womanizing had ensured that they were not romantically inseparable and home was not a place where he spent a great deal of time when he was a free man.

  Murphy was content with his lot. Out of reach of the police for six years, he could continue, with Mr A.’s assistance, to control the Brown Bear unit and give orders for further killings from his prison cell.

  10

  Orders from Prison

  Once Murphy was locked away in the Maze Prison (formerly Long Kesh) he felt able to put into action a plan which would not only satisfy his craving for violence but would fool Nesbitt into believing that he was not, in fact, the cut-throat murderer.

  Within a week of his confinement Murphy received a visit from Mr A.
and told him that the cut-throat murders were to continue in order to throw the police off his track and allay any suspicions they might have about his associates. Mr A. conveyed the message to Moore and the others. Willing though he was to be the point of contact for the unit, he was determined to maintain a low profile and simply supply the weaponry. He was a loner who took only calculated risks and was not prepared to play an active role which could eventually expose him to police scrutiny. When Murphy was personally running the unit Mr A. was always present to provide advice, but rarely did he become physically involved in a killing. He was, however, an accomplice to murder at the time of the beating and shooting of Shaw, and during the lorry killings he sat in the car and watched.

  Mr A. told Moore that Lenny’s orders stipulated Moore should run the unit in his absence but would be assisted, if necessary, by Mr A. Weapons would be provided by Mr A., who would act as go-between for Lenny and the volunteers. Murphy’s choice of Moore as ‘leader’ of the unit was both ideal and understandable. He worshipped and feared Murphy, possessed a good knowledge of the sectarian geography of the city and had been well tutored by Lenny in the art of killing. Some people have suggested that Moore was easily led by Murphy and there is some truth in that assertion, but this is to neglect certain facets of Moore’s character which made him an ideal surrogate. He hated all Catholics and, like Murphy, was a ruthless individual. Unlike Bates and McAllister, he was not known as a brash thug but was recognized as cool and thoughtful. Murphy, better than anyone, knew that Moore possessed the qualities of a killer. Murphy had taught him cunning and how to operate in a tactically random fashion, avoiding any pattern of action which might be detected by the police. Moore later argued that he continued the campaign of killing because he feared Murphy and because of the presence of Mr A. and Mr B. who were always lurking in the background prepared to follow Lenny’s orders. There is no evidence to support this claim. Moore, like Murphy, enjoyed killing and he was surrounded by people who were willing to carry out his orders.