Kincora

The Kincora Boys Home opened in 1958 in Belfast to house boys leaving abusive homes or otherwise unsuitable living situations during the troubles. It closed in 1980, when the public learned that during their stay, at least 29 boys had been sexually abused by three male senior staff members, William McGrath, the housemaster, Joseph Maines, the warden, and Raymond Semple, the assistant warden. William McGrath, the main abuser, was released just two years into his four year prison sentence for sexually assaulting dozens of young boys. Two years in prison. Chris Moore, the reporter, tracked William McGrath down in 1990 to ask him what truths about the Concord boys home have yet to be revealed. And McGrath told him he was the only person that would ever know the real story

McGrath was also the leader of TARA, a loyalist paramilitary group. Between that and his connections to prominent leaders, it's alleged that William McGrath became an informant for MI5.

TARA's second in command, Roy Garland, left the group due to its extremism and because of how open McGraph's child abuse was: "I talked to, I reckon, at least a score of young people. This was serious abuse. This man was dangerous in terms of young people and dangerous in terms of politics. I spoke to at least a dozen clergymen, orange leaders and, and one, the disctrict manager, said to me, I'll put my cards on the tabe, I know about this man, and a lot of them I didn't need to tell. They knew.''

Ian Paisley, who knew William McGrath well, was one such man who was aware of the abuse. He learned about McGrath as early as 1973, when Valerie Shaw, secretary of the missionary council of his church, alerted him. She would go on to say that she asked Paisley about how he would deal with McGrath's abuse at least seven times. Paisley did nothing and would later go on to officiate the wedding of William McGrath's daughter in 1976.

Chris Moore was a journalist at the BBC when the story broke about King Korra in 1980, and since then he's remained one of the scandal's most vocal critics. His decades of investigative work have taken him from the empty rooms of the King Korra boys home itself to the doorstep of William McGrath following his release. And his book, The King Korra Scandal, argues that not only was William McGrath manipulated by MI5, the British intelligence agency, but that Terra itself became a tool in the British Intelligence Service's toolbox. And most importantly, this author Moore believes that MI5 not only pulled information from William McGrath, but that it had him spread information and rumors for them as well. Chris Moore writes that during Terra meetings, quote, End quote. Astoundingly though, evidence that William McGrath was directly connected to MI5 and that MI5 allowed his abuse to go unchecked doesn't just come from rumors and speculations. It comes from the mouths of former MI5 agents themselves. 

Brian Gemmel - In 1975, Brian Gemmel was an intelligence officer during the Troubles, tasked with running an undercover agent in the Terra paramilitary group and finding out more about the organization. He recounted: ''William McGrath, according to my source in Terra, claimed to be an agent. And maybe that just means informant for MI6 and then MI5. But begs the question, what really was TERA? Was it an intelligence gathering organization in the loyalists and protestant community on behalf of the security service? Or was it a means of achieving some of their political ends? Was it an organization of influence? Was it an organization that could massage events?''

Eventually, Roy Garland, who uit TARA, approached Gemmel He approached Gemmel, the intelligence officer And alerted him to William McGrath's history of abuse Sexual abuse, that is And his concerns that William McGrath was continuing his crimes at the King Cora boys' home The two men then struck up a deal. Garland would provide more information on Terra and its actions and Gemmell, the intelligence agent, would take the report of abuse at Kinkora to his superiors for investigation. So, Gemmell kept his word, but he didn't receive the reaction he expected. Instead of pursuing the allegations, a senior official at MI5 told Gemmell to ignore the reports about Kinkora and end his personal investigation into Terra and William McGrath immediately. Gemmell later recalled: "I was shocked. I know I'd done a good job. I'd got information on Terra. I had brought to light something that was potentially criminal behavior. But the line was very clearly, 'Drop this.'" The abuse continued for another five years. Looking back, Gemmell is convinced that his experience was evidence of an MI5 cover-up.

Colin Wallace - Colin Wallace was a member of Army Intelligence in Northern Ireland and a psychological warfare specialist who learned of William McGrath's abuse in the early 1970s. He first learned of the abuse when a woman reached out to tell him that a young man she'd been caring for had been abused by none other than William McGrath, but that reports to the police hadn't resulted in any action. Wallace brought the reports back to British Army Intelligence, who in 1973 asked him to brief journalists on the information about King Cora. Wallace claims that despite having permission to leak the intel, his actions attracted anger from MI5 head Ian Cameron, who found him to be wrongfully sharing classified information. Wallace was then forced to resign from the Ministry of Defense in 1975 to avoid disciplinary action. Paul Foote, the author of the book Who Framed Colin Wallace? writes: "He became puzzled by puzzled and a little frustrated by the conflicting instructions. From MI5 and Clockwork Orange to keep all this sexual gossip secret, from Army Intelligence to try and get the same gossip published, he couldn't understand why when so much was known to Intelligence and to the police about McGrath and where he worked, no action was being taken over it.'' 

In 1981, shortly after the story about sexual abuse at King Cora went public and the abusers were jailed, Colin Wallace was arrested for manslaughter. Officials alleged that he had beaten antiques dealer Jonathan Lewis and then dumped his body in a river. The crime for which Colin Wallace served six years in prison until forensic evidence exonerated him. The first post-mortem on Lewis showed no evidence of foul play, but the case soon morphed into a murder in the eyes of the police. Officials then became suspicious of Colin Wallace when they discovered he had lied about his whereabouts on the night of the death. Colin originally told investigators that he had not seen Lewis that night, but later changed his statement. So, based on Wallace's changing story, the knowledge that he had become suspiciously close with Lewis's wife, and the fact that a second post-mortem found evidence of foul play, Colin Wallace was charged with murder. But throughout the trial, evidence presented by the Crown was weak and inconsistent. So much so that the judge, Justice Kilner Brown: "directed the jury to find Mr. Wallace not guilty of murder, concluding that there was no evidence of any intent to kill." Paul Foote believes that Colin Wallace was framed by British security services as a way to discredit his claims about King Cora and hide any potential involvement from MI5. In 1998, a former special branch officer who was familiar with the Wallace case wrote to Foote, the author, saying: ''I sincerely believe that Colin Wallace was fitted up by corrupt members of the establishment, embarrassed by the events described in the early part of your book. I feel there was a hidden agenda, and that the senior officers knew a lot more about the matter than they would ever care to reveal.'' Clive Ponting, a former senior official in the Ministry of Defense, told the Sunday Times, ''that he had attended meetings with MI5 officers at the MOD to discuss how to prevent Wallace and Holroyd from making allegations about dirty tricks in Northern Ireland.'' Clive Ponting also claimed that MI5 were "genuinely worried about what Wallace might say." The other man mentioned by Ponting, Special Military Intelligence Unit Officer Captain Fred Holroyd, also reportedly had insight into McGrath's connections to MI5. Holroyd reported that he was told that the Terra organization was in fact controlled by British intelligence. and was not a real security threat, implying that William McGrath, a former housefather at Kinkora and a leader of Terra, had come under intelligence control before 1973.

Colin Wallace, to this day, believes that several key pieces of the Crown's case, the murder case against him, were flat out faked to implicate him. One of those pieces of evidence is the supposed karate chop that the government said that he used against Lewis. Colin Wallace says that the alleged karate chop was manufactured to provide a link between the killing and his British Army background: ''The fact that it is now discredited by a leading expert indicates something very underhand was going on in the preparation of the case." Home Office pathologist Dr. Ian West originally told investigators that he believed that Lewis had been hit with a karate blow to knock him out, after which the Crown alleges that Colin Wallace left Lewis in a river to drown, but testimony during the appeal case from two new pathologists completely contradicted this claim. They argued that the bleeding, the swelling, and the damage to the nasal bones that would have come from such a blow just weren't there. Dr. West admitted that some of the evidence he had used at Wallace's trial had been supplied to him by an "American security source." Interesting. Other evidence came under fire too. Colin Wallace's appeal trial revealed that there was nothing to indicate that Lewis had ever been in the car as it was alleged, and that it was more likely that the attack had occurred at the river, not a separate location as the Crown had argued. Colin Wallace, after serving six years in prison, was released from prison in 1996. And since having his name cleared, Colin Wallace has continued in his pursuit to have both his own case of wrongful conviction and the potential cover-up at Kincora investigated to the fullest extent possible.

Clint Massey - Victim, Clint Massey who believes that MI5 wasn't just involved with William McGrath, but they were allowing the pedophile network itself to operate as a way to get dirt on major leaders and politicians. Now, this is where this story, as if it couldn't get any darker, this is where it gets darker. Here's a quote from Clint. "I strongly believe it was an entrapment operation for the security services. They hoped to get a handle on the people who visited, to get them to work for them and inform for them," he said. In a candid interview with the BBC, Massey said, "I'm aware that there's a section within the security forces who will use any means necessary to achieve their goal. The fact that they had to sacrifice young boys like myself to do it, that there is very hard to accept. I want the state to answer me. End quote. It's understandable that Massey feels so strongly about the murky waters surrounding Kinkora, especially when it becomes clear that the official story contradicts the claims of the Kinkora victims themselves. So the officials have always insisted that despite these police failings, there was nothing to suggest that William McGrath and Kinkora were a part of a larger pedophile ring operating in Northern Ireland.''

Richard Kerr - Victim, Richard Kerr, who ended up being trafficked all over the world, was asbused at Kincora, and later Elm House. He is now a spokesperson against human trafficking. Richard claims that as the trial of the King Korra abusers began in the 1980s, he was visited by the police. They went through his drawers, put him in a car, and took him to a police station where they interrogated him and left him in a cell alone for seven hours: "First of all, they intimidated me by bringing me to a station and putting me in a cell. They wanted to make it clear that I'm not to say anything. They also said to me that if you tell any lies, if you talk about this, then we can put you away." So, at that moment, I stopped wanting to volunteer what my experience was in Kinkora.''

Latter Cover-up

Journalist, Peter McKenna, who broke the story, alleged that the perpetrators and their activities had purposefully been hidden from the public through a cover-up And that the abusers had been connected to a larger pedophile ring outside of the home: "The shock allegations about the home on the outskirts of the city resulted in a police report being sent to the Director of Public Prosecutions. but no action was taken and reports on certain cases were destroyed under orders from a senior member of the social services.''

The public outcry following the Jimmy Savile story led the British government to establish the Independent Inquiry into Child Sexual Abuse (IICSA), in 2014, headed by Justice Lowell Goddard. For reason, despite pressure from both victims, officials, government officials, and the public itself, it was determined that King Korra and what happened there would not be included in the IICSA inquiry.

Kincora would be wrapped into a separate inquiry known as the Historical Institution Abuse Inquiry, which was looking into child abuse in residential institutions in Northern Ireland over a 73-year period. Critics feared that the HIA inquiry was not as powerful as the IICSA investigation and that it would be unable to compel witnesses to provide crucial information about the truth of Kinkora. But requests to move the review to the IICSA, where it could be more meaningful, were all denied. In the end, the HIA inquiry came to the same conclusions that the officials had always stuck to about the case, that there was no pedophile ring, no cover-up, and British intelligence services hadn't been involved.

Kincora's state documents are locked away and not to be published until 2065 in one instance and 2085 in another, long after everybody involved is going to be dead.

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By: Colin Browen...

Raped by: Otto Heckel