Special Patrol Group (RUC) - Sectarian Attacks

Sectarian Attacks

McCaughey stated that "24 or 25" RUC officers were working with the UVF in the County Armagh area, and that SPG members had been involved in many of the loyalist killings in South Armagh prior to the republican Kingsmill massacre of ten Protestant civilians in January 1976. In particular, he claimed that his unit had been behind the bombing of two pubs (McCardles and Donnelly's) in nationalist Crossmaglen in November and December 1975 respectively, leading to five deaths. A report into collusion in 2006 also found that SPG weapons had been used in the killing of six Catholics on the day before the Kingsmill attack.

McCaughey reported that he provided RUC cars as escorts to the UVF. He also alleged that a member of the Ulster Defence Regiment (UDR) in the area, Robert McConnell "was a very senior member in the UVF and deeply involved in military intelligence". According to McCaughey, the senior officers of the RUC and British Army turned a blind eye to the SPG's activities, because, "they didn't mind a wee bit of terror being spread".

In June 1978, McCaughey alleged that he and three other SPG members, constables David Wilson, Laurence McClure and Ian Mitchell, heard from the RUC Special Branch that IRA member Dessie O'Hare was in the Rock Bar in Keady. They planned to attack the bar, during their lunch hour, using an unmarked police car for transport, and a 10 lb gelignite bomb and machine guns. However, they failed to kill O'Hare. McCaughey was prevented from entering the pub by a customer, whom he shot twice in the chest. The bomb they planted also failed to detonate. According to McCaughey, "some of the others were back in the police station in time to get the emergency call". The man McCaughey shot in the attack survived.

The guns used in the attack were the same ones used in the Reavey and O'Dowd killings, on 4 January 1976 in which six Catholic civilians lost their lives.