NORTHERN IRELAND
Belfast Telegraph
A retired MI5 officer has insisted the Security Service would have been duty bound to take action if it uncovered evidence of abuse at Kincora boys’ home.
The officer, known as 9347, was giving evidence to the Historical Institutional Abuse (HIA) inquiry, which is examining claims that intelligence agencies covered up the crimes committed by a paedophile ring in the east Belfast home in order to blackmail some alleged high-profile abusers.
Three senior care workers Joseph Mains, Raymond Semple and William McGrath were convicted for abusing boys at Kincora in 1980, but it has long been alleged that other more prominent figures, including politicians, judges, civil servants and police officers, were also involved.
It has also been claimed that McGrath, who had links to a shadowy Protestant paramilitary organisation known as Tara, was working as an MI5 agent.
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