Arrest of Weir and McCaughey Changes To The SPG
John Weir and Billy McCaughey were arrested in 1979 and confessed to their paramilitary activities in the preceding years. In June 1980, they were both convicted of the murder of Catholic chemist, William Strathearn in April 1977. Their unit in Armagh was stood down and the Special Patrol Group was renamed as the DMSU (Divisional Mobile Support Unit) and reorganized to follow the pattern in the rest of the UK.
Weir accused his colleagues of participation in 11 killings. An independent inquiry in 2006 found that in 7 out of 8 cases, ballistics tests corroborated his claims, linking the killings to weapons carried by RUC officers. McCaughey claimed that many local RUC and UDR personnel were working with the loyalist paramilitaries in the Armagh area. The Barron report found that a group of loyalist paramilitaries, RUC officers, and British military personnel operating out of a farm in Glenanne was responsible for up to 31 killings. This group become known as the Glenanne gang.
According to Toby Harnden, "the years when McCaughey and the RUC Special Patrol Group were at large represented the only period when loyalist paramilitaries made forays deep into South Armagh, a republican stronghold".
John Weir claimed in 1999: "Some day it will come out that there were people high up, either Special Branch or army intelligence, who were using us."
Read more about this topic: Special Patrol Group (RUC)
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