Charles Harding Smith - Development of The UDA

Development of The UDA

A former soldier in the British Army Smith, at the time residing in Rosebank Street on the Shankill Road, called a meeting of other locals at the Leopold Street Pigeon Fanciers Club in order to develop a response to attacks by republicans from the neighbouring Ardoyne area. The location had been chosen because Smith was himself a pigeon fancier and member of the club. At the meeting it was agreed to establish a vigilante group, to be known as the Woodvale Defence Association (WDA), with Smith in command assisted by Davy Fogel, who organised military drilling for the forty or so recruits, and Ernie Elliott. The gained widespread notoriety and was blamed on a series of bomb attacks and shootings, most of which had actually been carried out by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF). Nonetheless Smith's reputation was boosted as a result and when his group merged with other similar vigilante movements to form the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) in late 1971 he was chosen as chairman of the new group's thirteen member Security Council ahead of the other leading candidates Tommy Herron and Jim Anderson. According to Martin Dillon Smith was heavily influenced by William Craig and William McGrath, both of whom saw a need for a group to replace the Ulster Special Constabulary and felt that they could easily influence Smith to their way of thinking.

Smith soon took charge of procuring arms for the UDA and in early 1972, working in tandem with Belfast businessman John Campbell who agreed to bankroll the purchases, was put in contact with a Scottish arms dealer from whom Smith was to purchase £50,000's worth of weapons. Smith sent three WDA associates, John White, Bobby Dalzell and Robert Lusty (who was also a serving officer in the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC)), to meet the arms dealer in a London hotel, following them without attending the actual meeting. Unbeknownst to all involved the "arms dealer" was actually a Special Branch agent and, after recording the conversation with the WDA men, arrested all three. Smith went to Scotland Yard the same day to inquire about his friends only to be arrested himself. Smith remained in custody in England until December when his case came to trial. Campbell claimed that the deal had been organised for the RUC in order to entrap the arms dealer, whom they believed to be a Provisional IRA member and a series of mistakes by the prosecution helped to ensure that the case collapsed with Smith acquitted. The trial was used as part of early arguments regarding collusion between the RUC and loyalists as a list of RUC Special Branch suspects was uncovered in Smith's house whilst he attempted to call Chief Constable Graham Shillington as a character witness.