Ballydugan Four

Ian Paisley Excerpts

Wednesday 19th April 2017 Commons Chamber

[Jim Shannon]

I thank my hon. Friend and colleague for that intervention. He is right that this debate is an opportunity to recall the bravery of the young men, but also to ask the Minister who is here to respond—I spoke to him beforehand—for some action. I will do that at the end of the speech and it is important that I do so.

The disgusting actions of what is estimated to have been the 16 man and woman team that planned, co-ordinated, carried out and helped to cover up the attack are remembered by all right-thinking people in the Province. I became emotional in a debate a few weeks ago and in this debate because we all recall the pain and suffering at the loss of a loved one, friends and colleagues, and we still carry that pain today. There are other Members in the Chamber who carry pain. I think of my hon. and gallant Friend the Member for Beckenham (Bob Stewart) and the gallant Minister, who served in uniform in Northern Ireland. We thank them for that.

[Ian Paisley (North Antrim) (DUP)]

I thank my hon. and gallant Friend for giving way. Does he accept that the lives of the victims who are left behind—the mums, the dads, the brothers, the sisters, the children, the loved ones, the sweethearts—are defined by such events? Their lives are defined by “what happened to my life after I lost my loved one”. It is only in the definition of their victimhood that we will be able to heal and cure in some way that pain—when justice is achieved for those people. Hopefully, through my hon. Friend’s debate, we can open up a way to find justice and healing for the people who have been left behind.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank my hon. Friend and colleague for his thoughtful intervention and for those kind words.

Like too many people in the Province, I have been touched by the actions of men like the leader of the South Down Provisional IRA who was responsible for the murder of the four young UDR men at Ballydugan. That vile, evil, despicable excuse for a human was a man called Colum Marks. He was the IRA commander for South Down when he was shot. It is no coincidence that when he was shot the activity of the IRA in South Down stopped immediately. That is obviously an indication that he was the person not only pulling the strings and dictating, but taking part in action that was completely unacceptable.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank my right hon. Friend for that intervention. That is partly what this debate is about. It is about seeking justice. It is about justice for those who served in uniform, as he said, and the importance of that.

Colum Marks headed up the gang and carried out the atrocity, lying in wait with his detonator in a forest just across from Ballydugan. When he had pushed the button and killed four brave, courageous young men, he got on his motorbike in his blue boiler suit, went up the railway embankment into Downpatrick, burned the motorbike, disposed of his blue boiler suit and was picked up by another person. There were 16 people involved in this. There was the person out on the road who told the people at Ballydugan that a Land Rover patrol was on its way. There was another person down the road who confirmed that. Another person left a 1,000 lb bomb. The next time hon. Members lift a 2 lb packet of sugar, they should multiply that by 500 to get the magnitude of the bomb left at Ballydugan. How long did it take them to put that bomb in that culvert at Ballydugan? They were seen doing it, by the way. The question I ask—the Minister knows this because I spoke to him beforehand—is why that visual evidence was not acted upon as it should have been to warn that UDR patrol and other patrols in the area.

Another person was picked up at the shopping centre—the hon. Member for South Down (Ms Ritchie) will know the area better than I do—and taken to a safehouse, where he showered and changed his clothes. The clothes were destroyed and he was moved to another house. Sixteen people were involved in the murders of those four UDR men. Colum Marks is the man who pushed the button and blew the four UDR men to smithereens. He was also the IRA commander involved in the murder of John Moreland—the hon. Lady will remember this—who was a coal merchant on the Flying Horse estate in Downpatrick. As he did his last delivery, he was attacked by two men and shot dead.

Colum Marks’s hands are red with blood. Let us be honest. This man was not a freedom fighter. He was a low-life, mentally deficient psychopath, with no human decency whatsoever. He was rotten to the core, contemptible, detestable and loathsome. He was a man with no good in him whatsoever; a man that should never have been born. That was the sort of man he was.

[Ian Paisley]

My hon. Friend is defining that person in a particular way and I agree totally with his definition, but does he also salute the gallantry of the people who stood up to that beast, and recognise that we won the war that they claimed to be fighting and the freedom they claimed to achieve? Today, we are administering British rule in Northern Ireland. There is no all-Irish state republic. The Brits—us—are still there, and we are not going anywhere else. Their death has at least sealed the fact that it has been a victorious and gallant death.

[Jim Shannon]

I thank my hon. Friend for his wise words. There are not enough adjectives to describe that loathsome person, Colum Marks, the officer commanding the IRA in South Down, and all the others involved in those murders and all the others during the troubles.

Nine people were arrested—I have read the historical inquiry report. One was charged with a minor charge and did a certain amount of time, but the person who killed the four UDR men was free, until one fateful day for him in Downpatrick. As he was setting up a horizontal bomb to attack and kill even more people in Downpatrick, he was caught in the act of trying to kill other UDR men and other police officers and shot. Justice was done in that he came to the end of his reign. It is pity it did not happen a wee bit earlier, before the four UDR men were murdered and all the other actions he was involved in.

That is the legacy left by Colum Marks, whereas the legacy left by Lance Corporal John Bradley, Private John Birch, Private Michael Adams and Private Steven Smart is one of honour, of sacrifice, of dignity, of strength and of great love, not only for their families but for their country. That is the legacy that I and my colleagues on both sides of the Chamber stand to protect and reiterate today. Let me be rightly understood—I am reiterating the point made by my hon. Friend the Member for North Antrim (Ian Paisley)—that Colum Marks and the rest of his abhorrent repugnant ragtag bunch deserve nothing other than the label of what they were: odious, filthy scum.

--- Later in debate ---

[Jim Shannon]

I absolutely agree with my hon. Friend. People try to equate the two, but let us be clear: those in uniform were serving their Queen and country to maintain law and order; those who wore balaclavas and skulked around at night and pushed buttons on bombs and blew people to death are the murderers and the terrorists, and they have to be accountable for everything they have done. There can be no comparison or equation.

We seek justice for everyone, and that justice will not simply be found in the incarceration of every person involved in the bombing, from the bomb makers to the clothes washers—all 16 of them, every one of them who did a task in relation to this. Justice must also come through an end to historical fiction being accepted as fact.

[Ian Paisley]

Does my hon. Friend agree that the team involved in the action on the evening when Marks was dispatched, as he so colourfully put it, should be given medals for the service they did to our country in taking out one of Ulster’s worst terrorist criminals?

[Jim Shannon]

I could not have put it better myself; to tell the truth, that is exactly how I feel. My hon. Friend is right: the day that evil, obnoxious, psychopathic multiple killer was put in the grave was a day when Ulster became a better place. I say that without any compunction whatsoever or any sympathy for that person for what happened. It would have been better if he had never been born and come into this world to wreak havoc and murder and mayhem and injury across the whole of the Province.

I seek justice for the four UDR men murdered at Ballydugan on 9 April 1990. The fact is that 27 years ago, in Holy Week, the most unholy act of villainous slaughter was carried out by men and women, some of whom are walking around today instead of paying for their crimes. I sincerely ask every person who is listening in the Chamber and the Gallery or watching on television to stop the re-traumatisation of victims of the troubles by accepting the rewriting of history. Let the legacy be one of noble, honourable, upright, decent men who deserve the respect of being honourably remembered by the people they so sacrificially served. Those men were Lance Corporal John Bradley, Private John Birch, Private Michael Adams and Private Steven Smart.

We ask for justice for those four brave young men, and for their families who have lived every day with the trauma and the memories of losing their loved ones. All of us in this House remember their bravery, courage and sacrifice.

--- Later in debate ---

[Kris Hopkins]

I thank the hon. Gentleman for that intervention. I give him my reassurance that the route that I have just suggested will address that and give people confidence. I am a former soldier and I played by the rules. Many people played by the rules. Occasionally, there were individuals who made mistakes, for which they must be accountable, but we were part of the establishment. We had rules of engagement. We believed in the Geneva convention, which has a set of rules, and that is the difference.

I saw the veterans’ march that was on a few weeks ago, and Ulster Unionist MLA Doug Beattie, whom many Members here will know, was a guest speaker. He made many good points, but one of his key remarks was that if people break the law, they should face the law. There was a man who was campaigning for veterans, but he still recognised, as I do, that if individuals have broken the law, they need to be accountable, regardless of which side they were on.

[Ian Paisley]

I say gently to the Minister that I agree totally with that, but it does not address the point that my hon. Friend the Member for East Antrim (Sammy Wilson) made. In this particular case, the officer who dispatched Marks has been through three separate inquests. I know the chap personally; he was a friend of mine growing up. He has been through one ombudsman’s inquest, and now has hanging over him a second ombudsman’s inquest, on the basis of the most dodgy, fragile, fake evidence that has been produced. That will be disposed of quickly, but that is not the point. He will be dragged through that process again, and his wife and family will be traumatised by it. He and his team should have been given a medal that night. That is the honour that our state should give to these people, rather than dragging them through this process of constantly going over what they did.

[Kris Hopkins]

I understand the passion with which the hon. Gentleman talks. It is important that our response and the state’s response is balanced and proportionate.