New documents uncovered by the Pat Finucane Centre indicate that the British Army were well aware of the nature and extent of infiltration by loyalist paramiltaries of the Ulster Defence Regiment. The papers also reveal that a SDLP member Michael Canavan tried to alert the British Government to the problem by writing to the Secretary of state for Northern Ireland but his calls went unheeded.
The new revelations are sure to leads to calls for more disclosure of what the UK government and security services knew about the extent of infiltration of the UDR and its collusion with loyalist murder gangs.
Following a litany of crimes and complaints about the regiment it was finally disbanded in 1992 (See links below for more detail):
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ulster_Defence_Regiment
https://www.patfinucanecentre.org/
https://www.thedetail.tv/issues/20/udr-girdwood-story/british-army-covered-up-udr\
-units-links-to-uvf
In 1985 the Celtic League wrote to all members of the UK parliament expressing
concern about the UDR and enclosing a leaflet entitled `STOP THIS MURDER’ which
called for the release of more information about the organisations appalling record.
The leaflet was also distributed more generally by Celtic League national branches (see link for details):
https://groups.yahoo.com/group/celtic_league/message/2046
J B Moffatt (Mr)
Director of Information
Celtic League
21/08/11