Sunday Life
How a tip-off by a UVF man’s wife saved a top republican and his four-year-old daughter from being riddled to death by sick loyalist psycho
06 November 2005
AS a policeman it was my job to protect all the people - even those out to kill me!
This is exactly what happened in 1993 when my partner and I saved the life of a Provo suspect whom we’d been warned was targeting us for murder on behalf of the Ardoyne IRA.
We not only saved the republican’s life, but that of his four-year-old daughter. A UVF gunman had been planning to wipe them out in an ambush outside a nursery school in Ligoneil.
It was during that year Special Branch warned my partner Trevor and I that a Provo suspect called ‘Kevin’ (not his real name) was targeting us.
We’d been spending too much time in Ligoneil on an investigation. In particular, the Provos had noted our fondness for a fish and chip shop in the area. We immediately reduced our visits, aware of that IRA team’s legendary thirst for blood.
Around the same time, ‘Sonia’, the wife of a Shankill UVF man, had become an important informant to us. I’d first met ‘Sonia’ while arresting her husband at their home.
She discreetly arranged to meet Trevor and I and explained how she was sickened by all the violence.
‘Sonia’ hated the UVF and her greatest fear was that her son would be dragged into the organisation.
Through her husband and his cronies, she was close to UVF ‘Brigade’ staff on the Shankill. She was able to get good information on Johnny Adair and his cohorts.
In February 3, 1993 she gave us information that led to police foiling a UVF murder bid on an innocent Whiteabbey man the terrorists wrongly believed was in the IRA.
Soon after, she warned us how her husband and others were seeking sanction from the UVF leadership to attack Trevor and myself.
Then, in June 1993, ‘Sonia’ tipped us off that the UVF were planning a major attack, but she couldn’t get any further details.
Near midnight on June 22, 1993 an agitated ‘Sonia’ called to say she needed to meet us urgently. We met her in a car park at 1.45am.
She said: “They are planning to murder a Provo called ‘Kevin’ from Ligoneil. They’re going to do it this morning when he’s taking his wee girl to nursery on the Ligoneil Road.”
I saw Trevor roll his eyes skywards in disbelief. It was the same ‘Kevin’ we’d been warned was trying to kill us. Talk about a twist of fate!
‘Sonia’ was able to confirm that a gunman called George Waters jnr had been chosen. She said he’d been ordered not to kill the little girl.
But Waters had been boasting that he intended to kill both father and child, arguing that, in 14 years’ time, the girl would be a Sinn Fein voter.
He had been instructed to fire a single shot from a VZ58 rifle, but he was bragging he would stick it on automatic, and claim he’d lost control of it.
The murder was planned for 9.30am - it was already almost 2am!
‘Sonia’ rummaged in her handbag and gave me a piece of paper with the location of the nursery school and the names of the UVF team assisting Waters.
‘Kevin’s’ alleged membership of the IRA was neither here nor there as far as Trevor and I were concerned. Our only concern was that two lives were under threat.
We were also obliged under the rules to take the information to Special Branch.
If Special Branch Support Units (SSUs) moved quickly, there was a good chance they could arrest the UVF team and recover the weapons.
Only Special Branch had the resources to conduct such operations and to confront terrorists and take them down.
We rang ahead and arranged to meet with our Special Branch contact at Castlereagh.
As I read out the six UVF names, he stopped at one, saying: “He is one of ours”.
But this Branch informant had not passed on details of the murder plot.
“So, tell me this, if he’s not reporting it in, does he still get protected?” I asked.
The Special Branch officer’s answer astounded me. He explained that the UVF source was not required to report anything to do with “the military”, that his role was to mingle with top UVF men and to report on changes in leadership, political direction or strategy.
But I knew our Branch contact was a decent man and that he would do all he could to persuade the powers-that-be to take down this vicious UVF unit, rather than simply swamp the area with police and force them to abandon the murder bid.
By 7am we had fully briefed Special Branch on ‘Sonia’s’ information. We were exhausted, having already completed a 16-hour day before ‘Sonia’s’ call.
I headed home feeling drained, knowing there was nothing more I could do.
Later that morning I was awoken by a call from a CID detective inspector.
“Jonty… look, thanks for your note. That put me well ahead. Your operation was successful,” he said.
He went on to say two UVF men in a hijacked Ford Sierra taxi had been arrested after the car was rammed by an SSU. George Waters jnr had been sitting in the back with a VZ58 automatic rifle straddled across his knees.
Three more UVF men had been arrested for hijacking a taxi.
“Waters had that rifle on fully-automatic. He would have cut that wee girl in half,” said the detective inspector.
My adrenalin was flowing again. I no longer felt the least bit tired.
Fair play to our Special Branch contact. Here was evidence of what could be achieved when CID and Special Branch worked together.
George Waters jnr and his cohorts were duly charged and convicted. Waters got 16 years for possession of a firearm with intent to endanger life.
However, Waters spent just four years in jail, gaining early release under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement.