Special Patrol Group (RUC) - A Partisan Force

A Partisan Force

According to John Weir, an RUC officer who admitted colluding with the UVF, the County Armagh-based SPG regarded the loyalist paramilitaries as allies and passed on personal information about Irish nationalists and suspected republicans. Weir furthermore alleged that the SPG provided the loyalist paramilitaries with weapons, and mounted sectarian killings of their own.

Another SPG officer, Billy McCaughey, told the journalist Toby Harnden that, "Our colour code was Orange and it was Orange by nature and several of us were paramilitaries. Our proud boast was that we would never have a Catholic in it. We did actually have a Catholic once, a guy called Danny from Dungiven. The day after he joined we had him dangling out from the back of a Land Rover with his chin inches from the road. He lasted a week".

The SPG was temporarily restricted from patrolling republican areas such as Crossmaglen and Silverbridge. However, some of the restrictions were lifted after Weir and another RUC officer met Harold McCusker, the local Unionist MP and asked for them to be lifted.