Memories of a campaign against terror

Alan Simpson has no respect for murderers, particularly mass murderers. As a senior RUC detective in north Belfast he deliberately averted his gaze when the "Shankill Butcher", Lennie Murphy, entered a court foyer or police reception hall. Murphy, like so many murderers and criminals, craved signs of recognition. He revelled in the press coverage he attracted when he was still alive. Like many other killers in the North in the past 30 years, he may have felt he was a cross between a rock star and a hero of his cause.

Former Det Insp Simpson, in the almost scarily restrained manner of a very professional detective, speaks of Murphy as a person in surprisingly colourless terms. Instead he describes Murphy's actions and the results of his killings precisely and clinically. This only serves to emphasise that he regarded Murphy and the many other murderers he met as though they crawled out from beneath stones. Simpson knew it goaded Murphy when he ignored him. That's why he did it.

His reminiscences of this and other major cases he dealt with in his career as one of the RUC's leading detectives are now published as a book, Murder Madness. It is the first book of its kind by a senior RUC detective who spent so long at the coal-face in Northern Ireland.

Simpson's views of the people he investigated is born out of his own experiences as a young police officer starting out on his career in the worst part of Belfast at the worst time of the Troubles.

"I started out as a uniform constable in Tennant Street (RUC Station). I lost 10 colleagues in two-and-a-half years. I read in the press recently a piece by Kevin Myers on why Catholics did not join the RUC, and he mentioned Dermot Hurley, who was a sergeant in Oldpark (part of the Tennant Street district) in 1971. Dermot was from Wexford and a fluent Gaelic speaker. I knew him very well. He served in the Royal Navy and wore his decorations.

"When Winston Churchill died he was chosen as one of four officers to represent the RUC at the funeral. He was liked locally, so people knew he was a Roman Catholic policeman. That was one of the reasons he was killed. He was followed and shot in an off-sales in the Oldpark."

The loss of so many friends contributed to Simpson's decision to study to become a detective. When the RUC chief constable Sir Jamie Flanagan decided to set up the "A Squad" of detectives to respond to the growing number of murders, particularly in the "Murder Triangle" area of north Armagh, Simpson was one of the first recruits. He went on to become one of the most familiar faces in the Belfast Crown Court during the height of the Troubles. Impeccably presented in court, he was the epitome of a professional police officer. His cases were inevitably thoroughly researched and well presented. He was loathed by loyalist and republican terrorists, many of whom spent time in prison as a result of his work.

At the height of the A Squad's activities in the late 1970s, the entrance hall of Belfast Crown Court on the Crumlin Road was like a busy small airport. Groups of defendants and convicts were shuttled through its doors into and out of court rooms. It was not unusual for dozens of life sentences to be handed down on a Friday afternoon.

The loyalist sectarian murderers in Lennie Murphy's gang were sent down for "natural life" one afternoon. Judge Turlough O'Donnell recommended that they should not be released unless in the case of terminal illness. All are out now, one since assassinated.

On one spectacular day in Court Number Two, the entire east-Antrim UVF, about 30 men, were sentenced to long prison terms by Lord Justice MacDermott. There were so many accused in this case that they spread into the public gallery. As MacDermott began delivering the verdicts, many of the accused tried to break out, and a single warder moved through the mob pole-axing the ring leaders with a baton. The UVF later tried to assassinate him and eventually blew up his house with his family still inside. They escaped uninjured.

Simpson was responsible for the largest of the subsequent "supergrass" cases against the UVF. He spent three years preparing and presenting cases by three supergrasses who, between them, gave evidence against 147 of their former associates. The entire leadership of the UVF was in prison between 1982 and 1985 because of Simpson's cases. There were similar numbers of IRA and INLA men in prison at the same time on the word of their own grasses. Between 1982 and 1985 there were almost no IRA, UVF or INLA killings in Belfast.

The High Court judges in all the cases found the bulk of the accused guilty, but in 1985 the then head of the Northern judiciary, Lord Justice Lowry, overturned all the judgments.

"It may be that he thought it was diluting his legal system and, despite the deliberations of his most senior judges, he sat in all the appeals and acquitted them all. I think he made a point in doing that. He probably felt this was a dilution of a system that he had carried through many difficult years," Simpson recalls.

Finally, Simpson's real enthusiasm was for pure detective work, for eliciting tiny but crucial details that would prove cases in court. There are recollections in the book of highly skilled detective work using both technology and good, old-fashioned astuteness in both terrorist and "ordinary" murder investigations he ran. The last two murder cases in the book are crimes that could occur in any society.

Simpson retired early due to illness, undoubtedly brought on by the pressures of his work. He and his wife Caroline were forced to move house twice as a result of threats to their lives. Caroline regretted having to leave their homes but points out that at least they had warnings and were able to act. So many of her husband's colleagues did not have that benefit. The couple raised twin sons who went through Campbell College and are now in third-level education. Alan and Caroline Simpson now live abroad.

Murder Madness is printed by Gill & McMillan. Price £7.99