RUC men sided with loyalist strikers last May

A SECRET memo prepared by British army intelligence has revealed that senior RUC men were closely involved with the Ulster Workers’ Council strike last May.
The memo, prepared for Whitehall ministers some time ago, shows also that uniformed members of the RUC “connived at and assisted with the maintenance of UWC and UDA roadblocks”.
Referring to Special Branch actions during the strike the report says: “Co-opted personnel were isolated from information on events by being sent on routine tasks or being given rest days.”
The ‘co-opted personnel’ referred to are Special Branch men recruited by British military intelligence to keep an eye on what is happening within the Special Branch.
“As a result a functionally clear picture of RUC reliability area by area has not emerged,” says the report.
And it goes on to say that RUC activity of a routine nature appears to have failed by as much as 50 per cent.
It goes on to predict that in a situation where there were large scale attacks on the Catholic population 40 per cent of the Special Branch would throw their weight behind loyalist gangs. A copy of the report, which was prepared as a briefing document for ministers in the Wilson Government, found its way into the hands of a number of journalists in London recently.
Besides casting considerable doubt on the loyalty of the RUC to the British Government it claims that 75 to 80 per cent of the UDR could be regarded as hostile during a doomsday situation.
BRITISH military policemen are being trained for civilian duties at a military training camp in Kent and it is believed that a large number of them will be drafted into Belfast and Derry within the next few weeks.
The British Redcaps are expected to be used in areas like Falls and Andersonstown to take over from infantry patrols which will be withdrawn from the street.
A number of UDR men from the 10th (Belfast) Battalion have attended a two-week course at the same camp and one report suggests that they may be used to form the nucleus of a ‘community police force’ in Belfast for a trial period. There have been two previous attempts to phase in military policemen to civilian duties. In the Bogside area of Derry they were withdrawn after a few days because of resistence by local people.


Price sisters’ lives threatened

THE Prisoners’ Aid Committee in London has said it is concerned about the safety of Irish political prisoners in British jails because “there is evidence of systematic victimisation by prison authorities and attempts to create hostility among other prisoners.”
According to the PAC the Price sisters’ lives have been threatened by prisoners in Durham Jail. Since Christmas seven Irish prisoners have been ‘arbitarily’ moved to prisons far away from their families and another Irish prisoner’s cell has been set on fire. Officially the Home Office would not comment on the allegations but other sources firmly rejected them as being completely unfounded. There was nothing unusual in prisoners being moved to other jails under the nomal “dispersal systems”, they said.
Since being transferred to the women’s wing of Durham from Brixton Prison, London, Dolours and Marion Price have been put on different floors in difference parts of the wing, the PAC statement said. The reason given by a deputy governor, Miss Ford, for the separation was “security”.
The PAC said that the cells to which the sisters were moved were filfthy.
The PAC said that in a letter to their father, the sisters said that their lives had been threatened by other prisoners all of whom were in need of medical treatment, some being “drug addicts or sex perverts”. They are being “continually harassed” by short-term prisoners, who wanted information to try to sell stories about the girls to newspapers, the statement said.
“They have asked to be separated from Judith Ward, whose behaviour is bizarre, but Marion has been put into the neighbouring cell to this prisoner. Despite the fact that the Home Office describes Durham as a top security prison, Dolours and Marion and Judith Ward, are the only Category A prisoners there.
“The other 17 prisoners in the women’s wing are Category C and they subject the girls to continuous anti-Irish abuses and obscenities. Miss Ford, the deputy governor, has instructed them to associate with these prisoners, although some of them have threatened to poision the Price sisters’ food. The families are complainning to the Home Office about the treatment of Mr Price and Mrs Claire Murphy, the girls’ sister, by Miss Ford on their last two visits. This treatment represents a marked worsening of prisoner attitudes from that of the prison staff in Brixton where the girls were during their hunger-strike.”

Pay rise for home helps

HOME helps in the Andersonstown areas who were threatening strike action some months ago have just been given a big pay rise.
The new rate for the job, which paid only 30p per hour this time last year, has climbed to 80p.
After the reorganisation of local government services home helps who were working in the Antrim County Council area protested that they were being paid 17p an hour less than colleagues who were working in the area formerly controlled by Belfast Corporation.
In some parts of Andersonstown women working within a hundred yards of each other were being paid at rates which were 17 1/2p different.
A pay rationalisation last December by the Eastern Health and Social Services Board, which now controls the district’s home helps, brought all of the women’s pay up to a standard rate of 67p per hour.
Most of the women work at least ten hours per week, with the average time spent looking after old and housebound people being around 15 hours.

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