War, the SAS, PIRA and the Law

‘The idea that we played hard and fast with the law is nonsense’

Mark Hennessy, Ireland and Britain Editor, Irish Times, February 7th, 2026

Former British special forces soldiers reject allegations the regiment was central to a ‘shoot-to-kill’ policy during the Troubles

Sitting in a room within a stone’s throw of the Houses of Parliament at Westminster, the conversation lingers over the echoes of shots fired 34 years ago. They were fired shortly before 11pm on a dark night in February 1992 outside St Patrick’s Church in Clonoe, Co Tyrone, during the Troubles.

Three men sit now around a table in central London for a difficult conversation with The Irish Times about the past.

Each was a member of the British army’s elite special-forces unit, the Special Air Service (SAS), known as “the regiment” to its own. Each is a veteran of dozens of operations in the North.

Quietly, and sometimes not so quietly, the three men express fury at last February’s decision by Judge Michael Humphreys, Northern Ireland’s presiding coroner, who is responsible for legacy litigation, to refer the Clonoe shootings of four IRA men by the SAS to the Director of Public Prosecutions

Kevin Barry O’Donnell (21), Patrick Vincent (20), Peter Clancy (21) and Sean O’Farrell (22) hijacked a truck in Coalisland, Co Tyrone, and welded a mount on to it for a heavy machine-gun.

The high-calibre Russian-made gun could slice open 20mm of armour at 500m, destroy trucks and armoured cars, and cause “absolute and catastrophic” injuries to humans, as one weapons manual puts it.

Having shot up the RUC station in Coalisland, without causing injury, the IRA men went to St Patrick’s Church where their unit was to break up.

Instead, they met an SAS team hidden in hedges from before 8pm that evening. Over several minutes, more than 500 rounds were fired.

Conflicting accounts of what happened that night have arisen.

Humphreys ruled that the soldiers had not challenged the IRA men to surrender, that no shots had been fired at them, and that they did not have “an honest belief” that lethal force was necessary.

“The use of lethal force was not justified at Clonoe,” he said, ruling that “not all of the pertinent facts were known” by those who planned the SAS operation in the days before the shootings. The charge that the IRA men had opened fire “was demonstrably untrue and must have been known to be untrue”. Statements made by the SAS to the RUC were filled with “false justifications”, and poorly challenged by the police, the judge said.

Making little effort to hide his contempt, George “Geordie” Simm, who served from 1975 to 1999 in the SAS, with multiple tours in Northern Ireland, rejects Humphreys’s ruling, line by line.

Soldiers covered only by hedges could not call on IRA men to surrender when they were armed with a heavy machine-gun that could destroy them in seconds without risking their own lives, he argues.

One IRA member, Aidan McKeever, was given first aid by a soldier as he lay slumped in a Vauxhall Cavalier.

“Is that consistent with the narrative that it was shoot-to-kill? It’s nonsense,” Simm says.

‘Shoot-to-kill’ policy

Throughout the Troubles, the SAS faced allegations that it was key to the operation of a British Government-ordered “shoot-to-kill” policy, from Loughgall, Co Armagh in 1987 when the SAS killed an eight-man IRA team, to Coagh, Co Tyrone in 1991 when the SAS killed three IRA men, to Clonoe along with earlier controversial killings.

“It’s a mantra; it’s a slogan,” says Simm, a retired regimental sergeant major who argues that the past is now being “weaponised by Sinn Féin” to win the history of the Troubles.

One of his former colleagues around the table, a former SAS lieutenant colonel who cannot be identified for security reasons, led SAS units during the Troubles and previously ran close-quarter observation operations in “dykes, drains and ruined buildings for thousands of hours” in south Armagh and elsewhere.

“Some compatriots of yours will, I’m sure, regard us as a kind of antichrist and will see us as a kind of murderous undertaking, but the statistics simply don’t back it up,” he says.

“From the mid-80s to the mid-90s, we arrested about 75 terrorists, of which 14 were injured, and we killed, I think, 35. Even the raw statistics show that we arrested many more than we killed.”

The briefings given to the SAS before operations were based on intelligence – sometimes partial, sometimes incomplete – provided by the Royal Ulster Constabulary or other elements of the British army.

Challenged, he is asked about the oft-repeated story of the former RUC chief constable Jack Hermon once saying, privately, that he always knew he “would not be counting prisoners” after authorising an SAS operation.

The former officer bridles, rejecting the story. “If there had been a shoot-to-kill policy in Northern Ireland, then I think as the commander of an SAS unit, somebody might have told me about it,” he says.

“I can honestly say no one ever mentioned anything like it; indeed, quite the contrary. We put huge efforts into making sure that everything we did was legally watertight. The idea that we played hard and fast with the law was nonsense, is nonsense.”

Humphreys’s judgment has significant implications, he says, even though the coroner “has no military experience, has never heard a shot fired in anger” and “seems to have no memory of the Troubles”.

Some of his judgment displayed “extremely naive assumptions”, says the retired officer.

The judge’s reference to the significance of the safety catches being on the IRA weapons prompts derisive laughter. “It’s pitch dark, and things are happening quickly,” says the former lieutenant colonel.

Even the ruling that the IRA did not fire is not accepted. One soldier, Soldier H, was hit in the face, but the judge decided that was from a ricocheted round fired by his own side. “Armour piercing rounds don’t ricochet,” Simm argues.

Clonoe and incidents like it are central to the growing anger of serving and retired British veterans, who argue that the British government’s legacy legislation leaves soldiers open to repeated legal assault.

Future of British Army

And it’s not just a battle about the past. It is about the future of the British army, they argue.

In a letter to The Times newspaper last November, nine four-star British generals warned the legislation risked “weakening the moral foundations and operational effectiveness” of the British military.

“It is presented as a route to justice and closure; the bill achieves neither. It will not bring terrorists to account; it will not heal division in Northern Ireland,” they said.

They warned that hundreds of Troubles-related legal cases pose “a direct threat to national security”.

Former commander of the SAS Colonel Richard Williams, who led the regiment between 2005 and 2008, and who served in Northern Ireland during the 1990s, strongly agrees. “To be absolutely clear, the degree of control, care, consideration and precision in Ireland has not been matched since,” says Williams, who later served in Afghanistan, Iraq and elsewhere.

During hours of conversation with the former SAS members, anger at the Northern Ireland Secretary of State, Hilary Benn, emerges. They are particularly angered at his pledge to hold an inquest into the Loughgall killings of eight members of the IRA’s East Tyrone Brigade in 1987.

For the former SAS men in the room, the decision is baffling. Men such as Jim Lynagh and Paddy Kelly had killed many times before and would have done so again; they had come heavily armed to bomb and strafe Loughall’s RUC station.

An inquest was ordered by Northern Ireland’s Advocate General in 2015, but a judge later ruled that it could not begin before the guillotine imposed by the Conservative government to end Troubles-related legal cases fell in 2023.

For years, Loughgall has been surrounded by conspiracy theories: that one of the eight had been an informer, but was killed anyway; or that the deaths of men from that active brigade were useful as the IRA’s leaders turned slowly to politics.

Rejecting these claims, Simm says the soldiers had been deployed five or six times before to stop an IRA attack on a rural RUC station. “They thought it was going to be another such day. Then – boom – the side of the building went in from a 400lb bomb,” he says.

So what were the SAS supposed to do, asks the retired lieutenant colonel? How would they try to arrest heavily armed IRA equipped with a bomb, he asks; if they would not be arrested, they would have to be fired upon, he argues.

Doing nothing was not an option because intelligence – partial, as they insist it was – might not have been as good the next time the IRA attacked a rural RUC station, with policemen unable to defend themselves.

“You have to play the cards you’re given. If I intervene now, how many lives do I save by taking out these terrorists – ideally, by arresting them? That is the constant problem that people who run these sorts of operations faced, and face now,” he says.

“What’s the balance between intervening now to save lives, or not intervening, but at the risk that the same attack, or a similar one will happen at some other time, at some other place,” the lieutenant colonel says.

Stormont talks

The former SAS members are asked, do the arrests of IRA members Michael Caraher andBernard McGinn in a haybarn in Cregganduff, south Armagh in April 1997 not show that IRA members could be arrested and not killed?

For years, it has been argued – even accepted by senior British figures in private conversations with this reporter – that the SAS were told that the two could “under no circumstances” be killed because that would scupper the then deadlocked Stormont peace talks.

A chorus of disagreement follows.

“Nonsense,” says Simm.

Yes, they accept such claims have been made, but not by anyone who knew anything about running an SAS operation in the IRA’s heartland in south Armagh.

His former lieutenant colonel agrees.

“If I had been told that under no circumstances is anyone to be killed, then I would not deploy. I would not deploy my men. You might as well send soldiers in unarmed,” he says.

An SAS-RUC operation in dangerous territory was conducted quickly, with complete surprise, the regiment argues. The two IRA men were captured near to but not holding weapons, including an M50 Barrett sniper rifle, and a Russian-made AKM machine-gun.

“Somebody in Number 10 [Downing Street] may well have said what you said, but that doesn’t mean to say that’s what happened – or could have happened, actually,” the former officer says.

But do they accept that British soldiers should have faced prosecution for wrongful acts during the Troubles?

The former SAS members accept this but not that the SAS committed such acts, arguing that they followed lawful orders to the letter.

“Of course, the British army made mistakes; there’s no question about that. Generally, it’s because it was young fellows, who were overtaken by events, or whatever,” says Simm, a north of England native and the the son of a Fermanagh man who left Northern Ireland.

“When you talk about us – it’s the diametric opposite. These guys are your thinking-man’s soldier. There’s quite a number from the Republic who serve today actually and many did so in the past,” he says.

A succession of cases involving killings at the hands of British soldiers during the Troubles are raised with the former SAS members. They include Dennis Hutchings, who died aged 80 in 2021 while on trial for attempted murder over the 1974 killing of 27-year-old John Pat Cunningham in Co Tyrone who was shot in the back as he ran away.

Even his commanding officer accepted that Hutchings, described as “a warfighting soldier”, was not a soldier who should ever have been sent to Northern Ireland.

The former SAS men do not disagree.

“Nobody could possibly sit here and say that nothing went wrong on any one of the thousands and thousands of patrols, contacts, incidents, that there wasn’t a single episode when a soldier acted outside the law,” says the anonymous officer.

“Nobody could say that. There’s bound to have been. But the operations we ran were high-end operations where we took such care to make sure that everything was as carefully managed as we could,” he adds. “With hand on heart, I am not aware of and I would be astonished if there was a single episode where an SAS soldier acted outside the law. I would be astonished because we put so much effort in.”

Bloody Sunday

The conversation with the former SAS officers turns to Soldier F, who was last October acquitted of two killings in Derry on Bloody Sunday in January 1972. The Saville Inquiry found in 2012 that Soldier F had killed two unarmed men, Paddy Doherty and Bernard McGuigan.

Saville found, too, that Soldier F likely killed two more, William McKinney and James Wray, and the judge rejected his claims that 17-year old Michael Kelly, who he admitted shooting, had been armed.

Rejecting none of the inquiry’s conclusions, the former SAS men still do not believe that Soldier F – a member of the British Parachute Regiment, not the SAS, should have been prosecuted in 2025, whatever about a potential prosecution soon after Bloody Sunday.

Saville did not operate to criminal prosecution standards, they point out.

“It’s clear to a six-year-old that there wasn’t enough evidence to convict him 50-something years on, based entirely on hearsay from two soldiers, one of whom’s dead,” says the former lieutenant colonel.

“That can only be viewed as a show trial. It had no prospect of conviction. Rightly the guy was not convicted – whatever the rights and wrongs of what he may, or may not have done.”

“There was zero prospect of conviction. So why was he put on trial? It can only have been for the purposes of PR, for the purposes of appeasing one political party, or other,” he continues.

They accept few military prosecutions have happened, but hundreds of veterans now credibly fear they could be drawn into civil cases, inquests and other legal proceedings under the legacy legislation.

“Dozens and dozens of soldiers are stuck in a Kafkaesque maelstrom of legal process which is essentially open ended. They’re looking at years and years and years of legal action,” says the former lieutenant colonel.

“Whether that’s inquests, or whether it’s private civil actions. The likelihood of anyone being prosecuted for serious crimes is really quite small for the same reason that there’s no evidence. However, the likelihood of them being involved for potentially up to decades in civil actions and inquests is really very high.”

The other former SAS members nod in agreement.

Legal threat

Last November, the SAS Regimental Association, which represents current and former SAS members, warned Benn, the Northern Ireland Secretary, that it would go to court unless the legislation is changed to protect veterans adequately.

In the face of this legal threat, the UK government responded.

“We started getting calls. It had the effect of making government sit up and pay attention. Prior to that, there was a lot of ‘yeah, yeah, whatever’,” says the anonymous officer.

“They ought to be concerned when five former chiefs of the defence staff and nine former four-stars write in very clear, cogent terms about what this means. They really should be paying attention.”

So what do they believe should happen?

Families of those killed, including by the IRA and others, should receive as much information as possible from the Independent Commission on Reconciliation and Information Recovery or by other means, they argue.

Equally, the Irish Government should open its own books. Dublin forced London to toughen the legacy legislation, yet consistently refuses to deal with its own Troubles sins, including information the gardaí had in advance of the Omagh bombing, says Simm.

The Irish Government stopped prosecuting Troubles-related cases after the 1998 Belfast Agreement, yet it has demanded that the British government prosecutes its own, he argues.

“It’s an immoral position to take. It’s wrong on so many levels,” says Simm.

With nods of agreement from his former colleagues, he continues: “[Dublin] always had an ambivalent attitude towards armed republicanism. For understandable political reasons, the British government doesn’t seem to want to call it out on that. I understand why, obviously. But all of that adds to this distorting tension in the picture we’re talking about here,” says Simm.

For Richard Williams, the battle over legacy is not just about the past, but will determine the future of the British army, though he believes its leaders made major mistakes nearly 30 years ago.

The British army should have sought exemptions when Tony Blair’s government passed the Human Rights Act in 1998, bringing the military under Article 2 obligations to protect the right to life, he says.

“What is an Article 2-compliant operation? Where the enemy combatant you’re going against is quite evidently an enemy combatant because he’s trying to kill you. Where does Article 2 apply then?” Williams asks.

In reality, the British military adopted the Human Rights Act without considering the use of force in combat.

“The question that people like me ask, being blunt, is have they outlawed war?” asks Williams.

The British army went to Iraq with habits from Northern Ireland that rapidly proved unworkable in a far tougher conflict.

“Good intentions, when taken to the extreme, deny forces the ability to operate,” says Williams. “Things had to change to allow operations to be conducted, not just special operations, but conventional operations, in ways that protected the life of our soldiers within the bounds of what was reasonable.”

‘Traffic cones that replaced bust of Mitchell perfectly symbolise how our peace dividend went nowhere’

GAIL WALKER, Belfast Telegraph, February 7th, 2026

A monument to former US Senator George Mitchell, one of the principal architects of the Good Friday Agreement, was removed from the campus at Queen's University Belfast this week. In place of the bronze bust were three traffic cones. As a metaphor for the peace process, it could not be more apt.

What better than those universal symbols warning of potential hazard and a block to progress to sum up where Northern Ireland has got to almost 30 years after the historic peace treaty in 1998?

While George Mitchell has denied any wrongdoing, his name also has been removed from the Senator George J Mitchell Institute for Global Peace, Security and Justice at QUB over his links to convicted paedophile Jeffrey Epstein. The 92-year-old could also lose his Freedom of Belfast award. Finally, the victims and survivors of sex trafficker Epstein take precedence.

The disappeared plinth at QUB is emblematic in many ways of the condition of the “peace enterprise” itself — something which promised so much in those heady days of the cessation of violence, but which the passage of time has revealed to be empty promises for many people.

For 30 years this place endured deadly sectarian conflict. Bombs, shootings, kidnappings, assassinations, intimidation, armed police and soldiers on the streets. We are grateful many thousands are alive today because that violence ended when it did.

Northern Ireland had been an economic dead zone. The 1998 agreement made little dent in its backward status. In 1998 NI's GDP per capita was 20% lower than the overall UK level. In spite of all the talk of peace dividend, by 2019 that remained relatively unchanged, reflecting its poor productivity performance.

Sure, you can point to the growth of new industries in the private sector — finance and insurance activities, jobs in information and technology, TV and film production, the boost to tourism.

But there was no massive influx of foreign investment specifically to support peace. Obviously, the absence of bombs boosted construction and urban development but materially the quality of life measurements haven't noticeably lifted for many ordinary people here.

The greatest promise not kept was to the dead. We were assured of a legacy process that would see victims recognised and memorialised. Fill in your own wishlist here — some justice, some free flow of information, some remorse, some accountability.

But literally nothing happened. Zero. The legacy issue will never go away now. Only Whitehall fantasists and community do-gooders believe the passing years will erase those impacted by the Troubles — and as soon as you say that you realise that anybody who believes that on this island is in need of serious medication.

There was plenty of rhetoric — words like 'investment', 'peace dividend', 'greater job security', 'economic regeneration'. Nothing materialised.

Public sector employment remains significantly higher here than in the rest of the UK while the economy stagnates. No flagship manufacturers arrived, planting their flags in town centres.

The hope that Northern Ireland would have been sheltered from the full ravages of the 2008 crash and recession was quickly scotched.

This place is The Land Recovery Forgot. We never got a good day after the crash. The Republic has been booming for 10 years. Other nations in Britain can point to significant upgrades in economic performance. Greater Manchester — as we heard ad nauseum as its mayor Andy Burnham tried to position himself as the next prime minister — can show evidence of a strong economy for its population of three million.

Northern Ireland plods on. Decisions are not made. Major triggers for growth and development don't get pulled. Anyone heard a reduction in corporation tax mentioned recently? A withering report by the Northern Ireland Audit Office finds the Civil Service is going backwards with “persistent under delivery”.

It's demoralising labouring on about the health service crisis anymore. It makes daily headlines, horrifies us, but nothing changes outcomes — except being able to afford private healthcare. There doesn't appear to be any strategy for reversing its collapse.

The infrastructure has actually got worse. We were promised more efficiency, better services, improved amenities. Roads, water, Lough Neagh, the environment — what we got was decline.

Who can confidently say the PSNI has the full confidence of the population? Recruitment among Catholics remains disproportionately low. Troubling cases pile up at the Ombudsman and indeed the Ombudsman's office itself has been mired in controversy. Add to that, a persistent sense that the judicial system is not doing what it is meant to do.

Academic underachievement has been with us for decades, often cited, never addressed. Ditto, struggling town and city centres. Jobs remain Belfast-centric.

Everything is a burden heaped on the shoulders of working people.

Even the Stormont Assembly is beginning to look like a structure that has failed. It hasn't improved people's lives — but it has united them in recognising what poor governance delivers. Nothing.

Dysfunctionality is beyond satire — PSNI officers taking legal action over a data breach have their names published on the NI courts website.

Not to equate the Northern Ireland experience directly with say Ukraine or Gaza, but now when people start to consider the future of those two current warzones they immediately think of money — of rebuilding, regeneration, restoration, remuneration.

They talk about development packages which will quickly and radically improve the prospects of people living under terrible conditions.

Like everything else, peace requires investment if it is to last

You can quibble about the way in which those things are discussed. You can argue about the ethics of how these conflicts are resolved. But nonetheless the consensus on all sides is that peace must be supported by investment — vast amounts of new money that will mean people begin to see a visible transformation in their daily lives.

In spite of all the talk Northern Ireland came and went with nothing. The jamboree didn't happen. The dividend didn't arrive. Not to ordinary people. Low income families in rundown estates weren't handed sums of cash to relocate to better houses in new mixed areas. Or invited to send their children to new colleges to catch-up their education and skills.

As far as peace deals go, Northern Ireland was the international cheap date. No big victims payouts. No big institutional interventions. No radical industrial or technological innovation or economic revolution.

People here are still muddling along almost as if nothing had happened except their loved ones are still dead and injured.

It's worth reflecting on the eyewatering figures being discussed by the great and good about the reconstruction of Gaza, involving many, many billions of dollars. The talk of opportunity, quality of life, reparation — for a strip of land about the size of the Ards peninsula.

It does make you think what might have been possible here had investment arrived as heavily as may be the case now in other parts of the world.

How, if it had reached the pockets of ordinary people, it might have changed attitudes, opened up possibilities for how people might live their lives.

Normal human aspiration — to afford a home while young, to raise a family with hope of prospects — has never been available for all. Instead, the feeling of being locked in, with limited pathways to a better life, remains the norm.

International interest in Northern Ireland ended quite a while ago. In some ways, the erasure of George Mitchell's name from public life further strips that out.

The empty spot is emblematic in so many ways of mistakes made and the three traffic cones represent Northern Ireland very effectively. Maybe they should cast them in bronze.

But there are funds for some things

…Inflation-busting pay rises for Stormont’s special advisers

JOHN MANLEY POLITICAL CORRESPONDENT, Irish News, February 7th, 2026

Deputy First Minister Emma Little-Pengelly, left, and First Minister Michelle O’Neill

THE first and deputy first ministers’ six special advisers were awarded an inflation-busting pay rise two years running that has brought the total cost of their salaries to more than £450,000.

Michelle O’Neill and Emma Little-Pengelly’s highest paid aides saw their salaries increase last year by more than 6.7%.

The total bill for Stormont’s 14 special advisers is now thought to be close to £1m.

Ms O’Neill and Ms Little-Pengelly’s office has declined to comment but a statement from the Department of Finance said special advisers “support ministers in carrying out their official responsibilities”.

“They work within government structures alongside civil servants to help progress ministerial priorities, providing political insight on policy issues,” the DoF statement said.

“Salaries are assigned to a pay band based on the level and scope of responsibility required for the position.”

The spads have had salary increases in line other with civil servants of more than 9% over the past two years – outstripping the UK Consumer Price Index (CPI) in both years.

Generous packages

Ronan McGinley and former junior minister Alastair Ross, advisers to the first and deputy first ministers respectively, enjoy the most generous remuneration packages with gross pay of £87,469.

Ms O’Neill’s other aides, John Loughran and former Belfast councillor Clíodhna Nic Bhranair, receive respective salaries of £74,669 and £66,336.

Ms Little-Pengelly’s junior aides, Ashleigh Perry and Matthew Morrison, are paid £69,336 and £65,919, respectively.

The total cost of Executive Office special advisers now exceeds £451,000.

The pay increases come against growing criticism of the Stormont Executive’s delivery record.

‘Derisory output’

O’Toole said that while it was “legitimate and necessary” for the joint first ministers to have advisers, he said the “derisory output of the Executive Office” meant the public would ask questions about value for money.

“Strategies not published, executive agenda items blocked, as well as stadiums not built and roads left unfinished,” the SDLP MLA said.

“The first and deputy first minister increasingly struggle to appear together in front of cameras, and the Executive is getting little business done, so the public will wonder what all these wages are for.”

The Irish News acquired the information via a freedom of information request.

It shows the spads’ pay bands were uplifted in line with the Northern Ireland Civil Service (NICS) pay award, which was 3% in 2024 and 6% in 2025. Where eligible, they received a pay increase equivalent to the average NICS pay award for that year.

However, where an individual aide’s salary fell below the revised minimum for their pay band following the uplift, their salary was increased to the new band minimum.

For the 2025 pay award, the average salary increase in the NICS was 6.67%.

DUP minister doubles funding to mark US independence

CONNLA YOUNG, Irish News, February 7th, 2026

A DUP-LED Stormont department has almost doubled funding to mark the anniversary of the USA’s Declaration of Independence from British rule 250 years ago.

Concerns have been raised after it emerged that around £425,000 has been allocated by Department for Communities (DfC) minister Gordon Lyons for projects linked to the USA’s Declaration of Independence celebrations.

It has now emerged that funding for projects linked to the anniversary has rocketed from an initial pledge of £250,000 last April to around £425,000 – an unannounced uplift of around £175,000.

The Declaration of Independence was adopted on July 4, 1776, during the period of the American Revolutionary War, which ended in 1783 with a historic victory for the fledgling United States over the British.

Many of those who took part in the overthrow of British rule were of Scots-Irish and ‘Ulster-Scots’ descent, and included a significant number of Presbyterians who fled Ireland due to religious persecution from the established Anglican Church.

Organisations lined up to receive funding include the Orange Order, the Belfast Bands Forum and various groups linked to Ulster-Scots activities.

Details of the original £250,000 funding pot emerged via a press release issued by DfC last April.

Celebrating founding of ‘modern America’

At the time, Mr Lyons said the funding announcement would “encourage more local people to celebrate our place in the founding of modern America and to mark the global impact of the Declaration of Independence”.

In a press release issued on January 21, Mr Lyons announced funding for around 22 projects.

However, neither the press release nor Mr Lyons made any reference to the extra £175,000 increase in funding.

Successful applicants to the USA-NI250 funding scheme, which is administered by the Ulster-Scots Agency, include the Grand Orange Lodge of Ireland, which has been allocated £15,700 for a project exploring links between those who helped the overthrow of Catholic King James II in 1688 and the events of 1776.

The Belfast Bands Forum is to receive £12,150 for a “project celebrating the shared cultural and musical heritage between the north and America”.

Other groups with links to Ulster-Scots activities have also been granted thousands of pounds, including Schomberg Society Kilkeel Ltd, which has been awarded £20,000.

Among the biggest winners was National Museums NI, which has been allocated £50,000 to help with programming at the Ulster American Folk Park.

Ulster University has also been given £50,000 with Tourism NI claiming £21,500.

The department has also set aside £30,000 for a concert in the grounds of Belfast City Hall on July 4.

People Before Profit MLA Gerry Carroll raised concerns about the funding.

‘Minister has questions to answer over funding’

“The communities minister has serious questions to answer about how this funding has quietly ballooned with no explanation or transparency, and why the likes of the Orange lodge is being handed thousands of pounds in public money.”

Mr Carroll said the minister’s attention should be on social issues closer to home.

“Instead of funnelling large sums of public money into this project, the minister should address matters closer to home, such as the housing crisis,” he said.

A spokeswoman for the DfC said: “Following the announcement of the fund, a number of public bodies highlighted plans connected to the 250th anniversary and these, alongside the range and breadth of projects that applied to the call for applications, led to the minister allocating more funding.

“The projects contain a wide range of activities in Northern Ireland, supporting activity across history and heritage, music, language, culture and the arts, and therefore will deliver significant benefits for all these important sectors.”

Hate mail sent to Bloody Sunday victim's brother

ABDULLAH SABRI, Belfast Telegraph, February 7th, 2026

THOSE BEHIND 'DISGUSTING' LETTER ARE ABSOLUTELY SICK, SAYS EX-SDLP BOSS

The brother of a man killed on Bloody Sunday received a “disgusting” letter before meeting the President of Ireland this week.

Mickey McKinney, brother of victim William McKinney, said the sinister message mailed to the Museum of Free Derry on Thursday was opened as he was preparing to welcome Catherine Connolly to meet other families of Bloody Sunday victims.

Mr McKinney, who has previously received a number of threats along with his brothers, Joe and John, hit out at the note which is “yet another piece of hate mail”.

The McKinney brothers also received a number of abusive online messages during the Soldier F trial last year.

Mr McKinney told this newspaper that he more “pitied than scorned” those who issue such messages.

He also stressed the responsibility of political leaders “to refrain from public statements that create an atmosphere where it can appear acceptable to some to gloat at injustice and to attack innocent victims who merely seek justice and equality of treatment by the state”.

SDLP MP Colum Eastwood branded the letter as “disgusting” and acknowledged that it is one of many that Mr McKinney has received.

He was among those present at the museum when Mr McKinney opened it.

‘A good man fighting for justice’

The former SDLP leader said: “Mickey McKinney is a good man fighting for justice for his family and for all those murdered and injured on Bloody Sunday.

“This isn't the first time he has been threatened, but it is absolutely disgusting and those behind it are sick.

“It's hard to imagine the mentality of a person who sees grieving victims campaigning for justice and decides to compound that pain with faceless threats.

“People from every community in Derry and beyond will be disgusted by this and I know they'll stand with Mickey and the Bloody Sunday families.”

President Connolly visited Derry during her three-day official visit to Northern Ireland, which concluded yesterday.

During an address in the city, she said “justice is still awaited” by the families of victims of Bloody Sunday.

Ms Connolly added that she was conscious that her visit to Derry came as last Friday marked the 54th anniversary of the massacre.

The Parachute Regiment opened fire on civil rights demonstrators in the Bogside area of the city on January 30, 1972, leaving 14 unarmed civilians dead.

Last October, a former paratrooper, referred to as Soldier F for legal reasons, was found not guilty of the Bloody Sunday murders of James Wray and William McKinney.

Soldier F was also cleared of attempting to murder Michael Quinn, Patrick O'Donnell, Joseph Friel, Joe Mahon and an unknown person. He had pleaded not guilty to the seven counts.

Judge Patrick Lynch KC heard evidence across a five-week trial.

In a judgment, which lasted almost two-and-a-half hours, Judge Lynch said the evidence was not sufficient to convict the former Lance Corporal of the charges.

Attempt to dismiss PSNI murder bid case rejected

ASHLEIGH McDONALD, Irish News, February 7th, 2026

A BID to dismiss the case against two men from Dublin accused of attempting to murder a police officer in Co Derry was rejected by a senior judge yesterday.

The two accused are on trial on charges arising from an incident in Eglinton in June 2015 when the wife of a serving policeman disturbed an attempt to place a bomb under her husband’s car.

Sean Paul Farrell (41), from Stannaway Road in Crumlin, and 38-year old Ciaran Maguire, of Kippure Park in Finglas, have both denied charges of attempting to murder a serving member of the PSNI and possessing explosives with intent to endanger life on June 18, 2015.

The pair were arrested in a Volkswagen Passat alongside Sean McVeigh in Co Donegal hours after the incident in the Co Derry village.

McVeigh has already stood trial on charges of attempting to murder police and possessing explosives, Mr Justice Rooney and following a guilty conviction he was jailed for 25 years in March 2019.

“ The evidence against both defendants has not been discredited in my judgment, although issues remain for my analysis

Maguire and Farrell faced a separate trial and the prosecution’s case against them concluded last September.

It is the prosecution’s case that the pair were part of a team involved in a sophisticated and pre-planned operation to murder a police officer.

The prosecution say McVeigh planted the under-car explosive device and that Farrell and Maguire acted as accessories in the joint enterprise with the intention that the police officer would be killed.

At the conclusion of the prosecution’s case, barristers representing Farrell and Maguire launched ‘no case to answer’ applications.

This, the defence argued, was that due to the weakness of the prosecution’s case and evidence against the defendants, no court could properly convict them of the charges.

Defence barristers submitted that apart from the arrests of Maguire and Farrell alongside McVeigh in Co Donegal in the early hours of June 15 2015, there was little or no other evidence against them.

It was also argued that the prosecution was asking the court to assume that because the two defendants were stopped in a car with McVeigh, this linked them to the deployment of the under-car device in Eglinton.

Farrell’s legal team submitted there was no proof he had prior communication with McVeigh, no evidence he encouraged or assisted McVeigh in the planting of the device, and no proof he possessed or had contact with the explosive device.

In defence submissions made on his behalf, Maguire’s legal team said the prosecution had failed to establish that Maguire was at the scene at Eglinton.

Concerns were also raised by the defence regarding forensic precautions taken following Maguire’s arrest.

As he gave his ruling on the ‘no case to answer’ applications at Belfast Crown Court, Mr Justice Rooney said he had “carefully considered” all submissions.

Rejecting the bid to have the case dismissed, he concluded there was “sufficient evidence to give rise to a prima facie case against both defendants, calling for an answer”.

“The evidence against both defendants has not been discredited in my judgment, although issues remain for my analysis,” he said.

Following the ruling, the defence asked for time to consult with their clients.

Mr Justice Rooney agreed to this request and the case was listed for review on February 20.

‘I wanted to make a difference in my own community’

PAT McART, Irish News, February 7th, 2026

Tom Black, the high-profile Derry doctor, tells Pat McArt about his upbringing in a single-parent family and what drives him to keep working in general practice

I START most interviews with a simple question: Who are you?

When I ask Tom Black, he replies: “I am the son of Veronica Duffy from Bishop Street in Derry.”

I then find myself in an awkward space… there’s quite a lot of information missing from that response.

Should I ask about his father? Was there some reason he didn’t give his name?

He must have copped on by the look on my face because he added: “My father was Tom Black. I never knew him. He was killed in a car crash when I was five months old. He was only 27.”

I then have to ask a really obvious question: “What impact did that have on your life?”

He thinks for a moment before replying: “I only became aware of how much I missed having a father when I had my own children. I have three sons and twin daughters. That’s when it hit. Growing up I didn’t notice it at all.”

He then says without prompting: “My mother was a strong woman, a tough woman. She had to be. She was the mother of three children when my father died, and she didn’t know she was pregnant with a fourth born eight and a half months later.

“She had to fill the role of mother and father, and she did it brilliantly.”

Dr Tom Black has had a distinguished medical career, particularly in his public-facing role as chair for many years of the British Medical Association’s Northern Ireland Committee.

He was particularly high-profile during the Covid pandemic, regularly appearing in broadcast and print media both here and in Britain.

He recalls that as a particularly busy time, trying to keep a medical practice working efficiently and effectively while addressing pay and working conditions for colleagues in a profession where increasing stress levels are an everyday reality. He stepped down from that role in 2024.

On Wednesday this week, we agreed to meet at his surgery at his Abbey Street practice in the heart of Derry’s Bogside.

When I arrived he offered me “one of Mike Nesbitt’s sandwiches”.

Turns out that the health minister had been visiting Dr Black that day, but when I asked him what they talked about, he replied: “No offence, I can’t tell you. It’s confidential at the minute.”

So, while he might have stepped down from a frontline role in BMA politics, it would seem he’s still active in the background.

Tom Black could have had a very successful career in politics. A tall, distinguished-looking man with a full head of white hair, he has an air of calm, confidence and articulateness.

He also dresses well in a sharp suit. I mention this to him.

“Look,” he says, “I don’t even like suits. But I have a role here. I am a doctor. People expect their GPs to be reliable people, to be competent. I don’t think me arriving in jeans and a t-shirt would be setting the right tone or image, or whatever way you want to describe it.” Fair point. So, what shaped him? “Maybe missing a father had an effect in that I was a quiet child. I was also studious.

“I went to Pennyburn PS and the headmaster, Dickie McDermott, was a big influence on my life. He knew my family background, that I had no father, so he was very good to me.

“A strange thing too was that he allowed me a half-day every Thursday because he knew that was the day my mother got a half-day from her work. Wasn’t that a very enlightened thing to do back then?”

Both sets of grandparents also played a big part in his life, though he recalls some of the things that happened then would fall foul of all kinds of health and safety checks now, including a four-year-old Tom Black starting his Granda Black’s van and heading down a bit of Park Avenue.

His mother, as he said earlier, was a strong woman.

As well as having four kids, she had a full-time job. When she came home in the evening she made dinner, ensured the young ones did their homework and were then in bed early so she could clean the house, prepare lunches and do whatever other chores needed doing.

Some years later she remarried and had a second family with local estate agent Ciaran Burke. She also opened up a very successful clothes shop in Derry, ‘Veronica’s’.

“My mother was on the go all the time. She was driven in that she never accepted failure. Indeed, she would complain if I came second in anything, though I managed to do that quite a few times.

“I wanted to be like Peter Fallon, I wanted to make a difference in my own community with my own people

Dr Tom Black always aspired to be a GP

“As was expected of me, I passed my 11-plus so I went to St Columb’s and I have to say the standard of education there was second to none. We were lucky to have some great teachers.

“I do, however, remember the head of the school, Monsignor Coulter, referring to me once as a ‘corner boy’ because I happened to like playing snooker, football, running after girls. In other words, I was a normal teenager.

“One day he asked me what I was going to do, and when I replied ‘medicine’, he rejected the idea out of hand, suggesting I hadn’t a hope.”

He can’t fully explain it, but Tom Black knew from about the age of seven that he wanted to be a doctor – more specifically, a GP. And he thinks it was down to one man, Dr Peter Fallon.

FALLON was the family doctor and was a role model for the impressionable young Black.

“He was the GP from central casting. He was, as far as I was concerned when I was a wee fella, perfection. Kind, compassionate, competent and professional. Indeed, when I was a student and did my medical practice with him, my admiration grew even more. I wanted to be like him.

“At UCD I did particularly well in obstetrics and gynaecology, and it was suggested to me that I should maybe consider specialising in that. Imagine today in private practice in Dublin the money I could be making? It would be enormous. But it wasn’t for me. I wanted to be like Peter Fallon, I wanted to make a difference in my own community with my own people.”

After spending time in the Holles Street and Mater Hospitals in Dublin, the young Dr Black came back to Derry to work in Altnagelvin.

Whilst there for four years he reckons he got the best training possible for GP work, moving from one speciality to another and learning massively from top-class colleagues.

Now well over 30 years in GP practice, he’s unbelievably passionate when talking about the inequality in society when it comes to health care. He rattled off a few statistics.

“There are four partners in this practice, and we have 7,000 patients. Deprivation here is real. In all my time we have had only one patient who lived to be 100 years old. Just to make a point: there are 100,000 people in Japan more than 100 years old.

“When I started in this practice we had 47 diabetic patients. Now we have 400.

“The consultation rate per patient in our practice today is nine. When I started it was three. Do you know what it is in the Republic? It’s two. And people here wonder why they can’t get an appointment.

“The Better Lives Index published last year on the best and worst places to live in the United Kingdom found that Derry City and Strabane came in the bottom five, ranking 357 out of 359.”

They are committed to doing the best they can in difficult circumstances.

Some years back his practice introduced a private option where people could pay to see a doctor. Tom says the doctors did not take the money for themselves, but funnelled it back into the public practice to keep it afloat as it was losing so much money.

But that, he says, was only a sticking-plaster solution to a much more serious problem.

“What we are doing now is unsustainable. Let me repeat that – the current NHS model funded by taxpayers is unworkable.

And this is where he really has some tough things to say about choices we are going to have to make about the health service and its funding model.

“What we are doing now is unsustainable. Let me repeat that – the current NHS model funded by taxpayers is unworkable. We spend 9% on health care. In the USA it is 18%.

“Our whole hospital system needs a massive overhaul but no-one is willing to take decisions because it might not be popular politically. That’s ridiculous. Funding for hospitals should not be dependent on votes. Best health outcomes should determine decisions, not politics.”

Five key areas

Black is clear that we have to prioritise five key areas – maternity, paediatrics, geriatrics, cancer and emergency services, with mental health as an important addition to that list.

“Some time back about 30% of our calls were from people claiming they were suffering from ADHD. It was taking up a lot of time. And then we discovered that people were getting their information from TikTok where it was trending.

“Now, it’s not a popular thing to say, but I think we should be focusing funding on the priorities, not something like ADHD. If we are spending funding on ADHD we won’t have the money for cancer or emergency services.”

He also makes a somewhat controversial point – that he believes an all-Ireland health service is the way to go. Why does he say that? “Sláinte Care in the Republic – we can’t compete. Let me tell you something that’s factually accurate. We have offered jobs to newly-qualified doctors, only to get a phone call a day or two later saying no thanks, that they are taking a job in Donegal or wherever. They earn double the money for half the work.

“Then there are the National Insurance hikes, minimum wage, and would you believe even things like ink for prescriptions is a huge cost. We do 1,000 prescriptions a day and the cost of that alone annually is eye-watering.”

But surely there must be other factors, I suggest.

“Of course there are. We, in the BMA, warned for years about an imminent crisis point, a tipping point… and that has arrived. We now need massive funding here just to deal with the backlog, and it’s not going to happen. Not a chance.

“We have people on 10-year waiting lists where their life expectancy is less than that.

“There are cases of people literally spending days in emergency departments before being seen. Some patients are waiting seven or eight years in pain for hip replacements, knee surgery and the like.

“I have said many times, if a vet offered that kind of service to his animals, people would want him/her struck off.”

Tom Black was front and centre during the Covid controversy.

What does he think now about those conspiracy claims, that it was all a hoax?

“I think it’s absolutely bonkers. 250,000 died in the UK from Covid. Where’s the conspiracy?

“This was a serious virus until we got on top of it. Northern Ireland could have done better. We were reactive when we should have been proactive. And the assembly was far from coherent in its response.

“Boris Johnson as PM was, of course, totally dysfunctional. The Republic under Leo Varadkar and Micheál Martin did much better. I said at the time that our policy here amounted to an act of careless vandalism. I don’t resile from that now.”

Final question – having reached the age of 66, what does he intend to do when he retires?

He clearly has no intention of quitting any time soon: “My views are consistent with the Japanese concept of Ikigai – better to wind down slowly rather than come to a sudden halt by retiring.”

Patient waiting in ED for two days challenges health minister

ALLAN PRESTON, Irish News, February 7th, 2026

A PATIENT who spent over two days in Altnagelvin’s emergency department this week has called on the health minister to tackle the “disgrace” of waiting times.

Francis McWilliams (66), from Clady in Co Tyrone, had the chance to directly raise his concerns with Mike Nesbitt on Wednesday when the minister visited the Derry hospital.

Describing the exchange with The Irish News, Mr McWilliams said he had initially waited nine days to get an appointment with his GP which he only managed after contacting a local MLA.

Sent by his GP to Altnagelvin’s ED with heart pain, he said he “sat there in a chair” until he was released with a heart monitor around 10pm on Wednesday night.

“There was 14 of us sitting in A&E… it was that badly packed they were standing lined out in the car park to get in,” he said.

“At one stage there were seven ambulances sitting waiting to get patients in.”

When the health minister arrived, he added: “I went to the front door, shook his hand and said ‘Mr Nesbitt now that I see you here, what are you going to do about the situation here in Accident and Emergency? There’s a lady from Enniskillen sitting in there of 88-years of age, she’s 25 hours there waiting to see a doctor’.

“I said ‘you’ve spent millions on the big hospital in Enniskillen (the South West Acute Hospital) and yet she has to come to Altnagelvin to see a doctor, what are you going to do about it?’.”

He said Mr Nesbitt discussed the lack of hospital beds, with Mr McWilliams urging him to do more to fund home care packages in the community.

“I said to him ‘these people you’re looking at are taxpayers. They’re paying your wages’.

“I said ‘there’s a nurse who worked here for 24 hours, she never even got a cup of tea or a break because she’s tending to 15 patients on her own. This is an out and out disgrace, what are you going to do about it?’.”

It follows concerns over the latest emergency department waiting times, which showed that nearly 600 patients spent over two days waiting in EDs during December.

Responding to Mr McWilliams’ comments, a Department of Health spokesperson said: “We can confirm that the health minister did visit the emergency department (ED) of Altnagelvin Hospital on Wednesday and met both staff and patients.

“The minister and department acknowledge the continued pressures on our emergency departments.”

Describing it as a “complex problem with no quick fix,” they said the only medium to long term solution was to reduce demand and manage demand differently.

“That means reducing the number of people coming through ED doors as well as getting people out of hospital as soon as they are fit for discharge to free up beds,” they said.

Francis McWilliams met Health Minister Mike Nesbitt this week in the middle of a two-day wait in Altnagelvin Hospital’s emergency department

“Our Reset Plan is attempting, over the next three years, to refocus our work towards earlier support and intervention, prevention, providing neighbourhood-based care and encouraging people to take more responsibility for their own health on a routine basis.

“We are also looking at how we can care for our frail elderly patients better by providing more care closer to home and preventing avoidable admissions to hospital.”

While dealing with a “very challenging financial position,” they added that the minister had recently discussed patient flow and hospital discharge issues with HSC chief executives, with all agreeing that increasing community capacity “was the most important single change” required.

Nesbitt signed 'unpublicised' back-dated pay rise for health chiefs 

By David Thompson, Belfast News Letter, February 7th, 2026

Stormont’s health minister Mike Nesbitt signed off a back-dated 5% pay rise for senior health service executives – which is “not dependent on satisfactory performance”, the News Letter can reveal.

The deal means senior bosses in Northern Ireland’s health trusts received a “consolidated increase” of 6.33% in the last financial year – in an arrangement that sees automatic progression up the pay scales until 2026/27.

It is designed so that any health chief on ‘pay point 5’ when the deal was struck in 2023/24 would reach the “maximum pay value” by the end of the arrangement in 2027. The current top pay point sits at £248,572.

The Department of Heath (DoH) says the pay and grading system is “fair, transparent, affordable and defensible”.

However, DUP MLA Diane Dodds says of all the issues the minister could be prioritising, “the public will rightly be perplexed that he has chosen these unpublicised pay rises”.

The health committee member says Mr Nesbitt “has pushed ahead with senior pay increases after previously reneging on his promise to give care workers a pay rise, citing a lack of funding”.

After the policy was signed off by Mr Nesbitt in 2025, trusts were told that senior executives in post at that point “should have their salaries uplifted by 5%”. A further increase of 1% “may be awarded” to anyone in post on or before 1 January 2023.

A letter sent from DoH to health trusts last month said that during the deal: “In these years, and these years alone, progression shall be automatic, and not dependent on satisfactory performance. The Department does expect, however, that robust performance management processes will continue to operate during this period”.

The changes follow a 2023 review of Senior Executive pay, independently carried out during 2023, “and following the approval of the Minister of Health”. There was no health minister in 2023 due to the collapse of Stormont, but the arrangements were signed off by Mr Nesbitt in 2025.

There does not appear to have been any public announcement about the deal, however the DoH has provided two letters sent to trust chief in 2025 and 2026 setting out the terms of the deal which are currently online.

Mrs Dodds told the News Letter: “The Minister confirmed to me in an Assembly Written Answer last year that local health service management costs already stood at £264 million in 2023/24 and continue to rise. These new increases will add substantially to that total, benefiting not just chief executives but senior executives across the system.

DUP questions deal

“I have tabled further Assembly Questions to establish the full annual cost and how many individuals will benefit. For some, salaries could rise to a quarter of a million pounds, with even the lowest level exceeding £100,000.

“The salaries the Minister has signed off dwarf those of First Ministers, many judges and senior clinicians”.

The DUP MLA added: “This decision will do nothing for the morale of staff on the front line — in hospitals, health centres and care homes — who work in the most demanding conditions. Nurses have to fight for a fair wage, while others are handed increases without challenge. Every pound spent here is a pound not spent on reducing waiting lists, recruiting nurses or delivering care packages.

“I do not underestimate the challenges of senior leadership roles, but people will question the wisdom of this move when waiting lists are soaring, emergency departments are overwhelmed and ambulances are waiting hours – even into a second day - to hand over patients”.

The News Letter asked the DoH for minister Nesbitt’s view on why the back-dated deal was necessary, and whether any productivity or performance related clauses added to contracts.

A DoH spokesperson said the department reviewed the HSC Senior Executive Pay framework in 2023 – introducing a “modernised and reformed” scheme over a 3-year period beginning in the 23/24 Financial Year. The revised framework provides a fair, transparent, affordable and defensible pay and grading system for all Senior Executives employed within the HSC”

“The framework introduces an 8-point incremental pay scale, revalorisation of pay points and a shortening of pay scales across a 3-year period with the goal of a 5-point pay scale being in place by the 26/27 Financial Year”.

They said DoH closely monitors the performance of HSC organisations via Systems Oversight Measures (SOMs) and the Support and Intervention Framework (SIF) which “strengthen performance oversight and accountability” across the system.

“These tools are integrated into the overall accountability mechanisms which the Department uses to hold Trust senior leaders to account for performance and delivery”.

Burrows says DUP Brexit decisions 'weakened Unionism’s position'

By David Thompson, Belfast News Letter, February 7th, 2026

​Jon Burrows has written to Gavin Robinson after the DUP leader called on him to take part in talks on unionist co-operation.

The UUP leader says he has outlined his “determination to rebuild confidence in Unionism and deliver practical results for Northern Ireland”.

The letter itself has not been made public, but in a statement the party said that Mr Burrows “reflected on his recent appointment” and said the “strong and positive response” from members and supporters was “an energising moment for the party and for wider Unionism”.

He told the DUP leader that “the focus now is on harnessing that renewed momentum to strengthen and advance the pro-Union cause”.

The UUP statement said that Mr Burrows “pointed to a series of consequential strategic decisions” over the past two decades which have “weakened Unionism’s position, including local government reform, the reduction in the number of MLAs, and the handling of Brexit which led to the Irish Sea Border”.

He said these have had a cumulative impact on Unionist morale, our collective electoral performance and confidence among pro-Union voters – “strategic missteps” the UUP had “forewarned” about.

UUP statement in full:

“In a letter to the DUP Leader Gavin Robinson MP, Ulster Unionist Party Leader Jon Burrows MLA outlined his determination to rebuild confidence in Unionism and deliver practical results for Northern Ireland.

“Mr Burrows reflected on his recent appointment as Ulster Unionist Party Leader, noting the strong and positive response from members and supporters across Northern Ireland. He described it as an energising moment for the party and for wider Unionism, and said the focus now is on harnessing that renewed momentum to strengthen and advance the pro-Union cause.

“He committed to leading with confidence, outward looking ambition, and a clear focus on delivering tangible benefits for people.

“Reflecting on the last two decades, he pointed to a series of consequential strategic decisions that have weakened Unionism’s position, including local government reform, the reduction in the number of MLAs, and the handling of Brexit which led to the Irish Sea Border. These, he argued, have had a cumulative impact on Unionist morale, our collective electoral performance and confidence among pro-Union voters. These are consequences that the Ulster Unionist Party forewarned about in relation to these strategic missteps.

“Mr Burrows stressed the need for better long term thinking within Unionism, learning from lessons of the past, and taking practical steps to maximise collective performance at elections. He described Unionist apathy as a challenge that political leaders must address proactively and collectively in the best interests of the Union.

“Ultimately, Mr Burrows reiterated his focus on securing the best future for Northern Ireland within the United Kingdom. He called for a clear and credible electoral choice for voters, while remaining open to constructive cooperation that best serves the Union and the people of Northern Ireland. He underlined the shared responsibility of Unionist leaders to encourage higher turnout and convert pro-Union votes into the maximum possible representation in councils, the Assembly, and Westminster”.

30th Anniversary of IRA’d Docklands bomb

By Philip Bradfield, Belfast News Letter, February 6th, 2026

Docklands bomb survivor Jonathan Ganesh releases a dove during the 25th anniversary memorial service of the London Docklands bombing at the spot where two people died in the IRA blast in February 1996. Picture date: Sunday February 7, 2021.

Victims approaching the 30th anniversary of the IRA London Docklands bomb say their own government has betrayed their welfare in favour of Blair-era deals with the country that supplied the explosives – Libya.

On 9 February 1996 the IRA ended its’ ceasefire during talks with the UK, exploding a half-tonne lorry bomb in the economic heart of London – the Docklands.

Planted outside a newsagents kiosk run by Inam Bashir (29) and John Jeffries (21), it killed them and injured 100 others – 42 severely.

The bomb caused £150m of damage and left many homeless.

Jonathan Ganesh DVA lays flowers at the scene of the 1996 Libya-IRA attack on the Docklands area of London which caused some £150m of damage and killed two people.

Like many IRA bombs it used Semtex supplied by Libyan dictator Col Gaddafi.

In October the government was slated for sitting on a report for five years which advised it to quickly press Libya for compensation; Libya has paid £1m per person to American, German and French victims of its terror attacks.

IRA victims believe the UK won’t press Libya due to oil deals it made with the UK under Tony Blair.

Docklands Victims Association (DVA) President Jonathan Ganesh was only 50m away from the bomb and survived – with serious injuries.

The DVA is holding its 30th anniversary service this Monday at the scene of the attack.

Guests will include survivors and families, and victims of other atrocities such as 7/7, and of other Libya-IRA semtex attacks, such as Harrods, the Baltic Exchange, Enniskillen and Aldwych.

DVA will be releasing white doves as a symbol of peace “and to symbolise our desire to end all terrorist violence throughout the world”, Mr Ganesh said.

He added: “I can’t believe it is 30 years since the IRA blew up the London Docklands and killed my two friends.”

He is “deeply saddened” that two survivors later took their lives due to the impact of their injuries. Many others passed away prematurely.

"All acts of terrorism are truly acts of evil,” he said,

Mr Ihsan Bashir, whose brother Inam was killed in the Docklands IRA bomb, said the anniversary will be “very heartbreaking” as he is aware of other victims who took their lives.

However he is “very moved and deeply touched” that after 30 years his brother and other terror victims are still remembered.

Susanne Dodd, whose father Police Inspector Stephen Dodd was killed in the 1983 Harrods IRA bomb, said victims “have been betrayed by their government”.

She notes that America and other governments “fought” to secure compensation for Semtex victims. "Our own UK government are a disgrace,” she added.

Sarah Butt, whose brother-in-law Paul Butt was killed in the Baltic Exchange IRA bomb in1992, said it was “disgracefull” that after 30 years they are no closer to securing compensation.

"Meanwhile this Government profit from taxation on Libyan frozen assets and Blair-era trade deals with Libya,” she added.

Kenny Donaldson, director of victims group SEFF, said the Docklands bombing is usually remembered for the breakdown of IRA ceasefire and the cost to the economy.

However his group focuses on the human cost: “The brutal murders of John Jeffries and Inam Bashir and many others were seriously injured, physically and psychologically.”

He too noted that 30 years on there has been “no justice nor accountability” and “no compensation".

Letter: Operation Banner wasn’t policing as we know, it was a war against terrorism

Belfast News Letter, February 4th, 2026

More than 1,000 members of the security forces lost their lives during Operation Banner in providing a safer Northern Ireland

I served in the latter stages of a conflict that had already taken thousands of lives and reshaped Northern Ireland.

It was not peacetime policing. It was a sustained war against terrorism, fought inside the United Kingdom, under conditions no democracy ever wants - but sometimes has - to confront.

That context matters.

Alliance MP Sorcha Eastwood has voted to remove immunity from Troubles-related cases, saying: “Either the rule of law applies or it doesn’t.”

Her party leader Naomi Long praised this as “integrity”, insisting that: “Anyone who breaks the law should be equal before the law,” and that it somehow insults those who served lawfully to suggest they require immunity.

These statements are made in bad faith - not because their authors are ignorant, but because they deliberately flatten history.

Anyone serious about Northern Ireland knows the rule of law did not operate in its normal peacetime form during the Troubles. That is fact, not opinion.

The province faced an organised terrorist campaign: bombings, shootings, assassinations, intimidation and community control. The threat was constant and lethal.

The state adapted, as all states do in such circumstances. Emergency powers were used. Intelligence was prioritised. Non-jury courts operated. Decisions were taken fast, under pressure, with incomplete information.

This was not chaos or corruption. It was a good-faith attempt to prevent further bloodshed.

Those of us who served were not operating in a world where evidence was being preserved for trials 50 years later. We were trying to stop the next bombing, the next shooting, the next funeral.

To now pretend this was simply ordinary policing badly applied is not misunderstanding - it is a choice. A choice to sanitise the conflict and push responsibility downward.

Ms Eastwood frames immunity as a moral compromise: that protecting veterans means protecting terrorists too. That is knowingly misleading.

Terrorists chose violence as a political strategy. Soldiers were deployed to stop it.

Those categories are not morally equivalent, and pretending they are is not neutrality - it is evasion.

In reality, terrorists already benefit from effective immunity. Many were released early as part of political settlements. Many cases collapsed. Evidence degraded. Witnesses disappeared. Immunity exists - it is just unevenly applied.

Veterans are now the only remaining group still being pursued, not because justice is newly achievable, but because the system has no one else left to chase.

False hope

We are told this is about justice for families. But criminal prosecutions half a century after a terror conflict are not a truth-recovery mechanism. They create false hope, endless delay, and inevitable collapse.

Those voting for this know convictions are unlikely. They proceed anyway, because admitting the limits of criminal justice feels like moral retreat.

We are also told this protects “hard-won peace”. But we do not have peace in Northern Ireland.

What we have is long-term appeasement of those who used terrorism, defended as stability and sold as reconciliation.

Violence was not defeated in court. It was bargained with. Prisoners were released early. Cases were abandoned. Political accommodations were made to stop the killing.

That may have been necessary - but it was a political settlement, not a moral reckoning.

The problem is that this settlement now demands permanent payment.

Those who used violence are insulated by time and politics. Their past is treated as sensitive and untouchable. Meanwhile, those sent to stop them are subjected to endless retrospective scrutiny, as if the war itself was an embarrassment rather than the defining reality.

That is not peace. It is appeasement with asymmetrical accountability. And it is unstable.

I do not believe the state acted in bad faith at the time. I believe it acted as it thought necessary to prevent greater bloodshed. But that is precisely why it is wrong - and dishonest - to judge individual soldiers as if those pressures never existed.

I served under the law as it existed then, in a society under sustained terrorist attack. Alliance now wants to judge that service as if the conflict were a footnote.

That does not strengthen the rule of law.

It weakens our understanding of it.

And it replaces honesty with a permanent, unresolved argument that helps no one - least of all those who suffered most - leaving Northern Ireland trapped in the past, endlessly relitigating history while pretending that is progress.

Lorna Smyth, Bangor

Don't you dare call Epstein a paedophile:

Inside story of leading NI lawyer's work to clean up vile billionaire's image... threatening the media on his behalf

SAM MCBRIDE, NORTHERN IRELAND EDITOR, Belfast Telegraph, February 7th, 2026

YEARS AFTER FINANCIER WAS FIRST JAILED FOR SEX CRIMES, PAUL TWEED TOOK MOGUL'S MONEY FOR THREATENING THE MEDIA, TOLD BILLIONAIRE HE'D 'TAKE GLOVES OFF' WITH SARAH FERGUSON, AND SOMEONE, SEEMINGLY ANDREW, BEGGED EPSTEIN THAT TWEED SHOULD BE 'BROUGHT INTO LINE OR TO HEEL'

It was early 2011 and Jeffrey Epstein desperately needed help cleaning up his dirty image.

PR adviser Mike Sitrick, LA's “wizard of spin”, was working flat-out to find some way to help his wealthy client climb out of the pit into which he had sunk after emerging from jail as a registered sex offender.

With friends deserting the mysterious US financier, Sitrick, who had represented everyone from Harvey Weinstein to the Church of Scientology, decided to enlist a Belfast lawyer to fight back on Epstein's behalf: Paul Tweed.

Over the coming months, the trio would work together to try to undermine some of the reporting which was troubling not just Epstein, but the then Prince Andrew and his ex-wife, Sarah Ferguson.

None of the three men could have expected so much of this would tumble into public view. Even if police seize computers or parliament compels the release of documents, legal professional privilege is exceptionally strong and often means vast tracts fall beneath the censor's pen.

Perhaps out of fear of being accused of a cover-up, the US Government's latest release of millions of files linked to Epstein has seen few redactions to hundreds of documents involving this trio.

A rare window into how wealthy exercise power

They provide a rare window into how the wealthy can pay for experts to pressurise journalists into backing off their client, or toning down coverage.

Last night Mr Tweed stood over what he had done, saying he acted within his professional and regulatory obligations. The solicitor said he stopped working for Epstein partly because he stopped taking his advice.

The documents set out the following.

In the days before the $895-an-hour Sitrick contacted Tweed, he and colleagues at his PR firm had been fielding calls from The Times, The Daily Telegraph, the Mail on Sunday and other Fleet Street papers.

The latest crisis had been prompted by Ferguson, the then Duchess of York, giving an interview to the Evening Standard in which she admitted accepting £15,000 from Epstein.

Washing her hands of him, she told the paper's editor: “I…deeply regret that Jeffrey Epstein became involved in any way with me.

“I abhor paedophilia and any sexual abuse of children and know that this was a gigantic error of judgment on my behalf.

“I am just so contrite I cannot say. Whenever I can, I will repay the money and will have nothing ever to do with Jeffrey Epstein ever again.”

In the days before Tweed was contacted, Sitrick's firm had been desperately trying to help reverse the damage this had done to Epstein.

A bill later presented to Epstein showed the work included examining police records for Epstein's most prominent victim — Virginia Giuffre.

Days later, Sitrick brought in Tweed.

From Britnet Spears to Dr Paisley

In an email to Epstein on March 12, 2011, Sitrick told him he had discussed the situation with Tweed — who had represented everyone from Britney Spears to Gerry Adams and Ian Paisley — describing him as “the defamation lawyer I have used in the UK”.

Outlining the emerging strategy, Sitrick said Tweed advocated beginning with a letter to the broadsheets, the Telegraph which “has probably been among the worst offenders”.

He continued: “Since they are a 'legitimate' paper they would be more likely to positively respond and less likely to make something of the fact that we were writing to them. However, as he said, it is hard to see how it could get worse. (I am aware of course it always can, but I think he is right here and it is worth a shot.)”

Less than three years earlier, Epstein had admitted to “solicitation of prostitution with a minor under the age of 18”.

Sitrick said that he and Tweed had “discussed the definition of pedophilia [sic] and I asked upon what basis they could possibly justify using that word. In fact, the age of consent in the UK is 16 and if this act occurred in the UK there would be no 'crime' to convict you of.

“You were convicted of 'soliciting prostitution' from a woman 17-3/4 years old. Their rationale, I believe, would be the published stories of accusations that you got a massage from a 13 or 14 year old while they were in their underwear.

“But these are unproven allegations and in the UK, as you know, the burden of proof is on them.”

He said Tweed guessed the papers “would say you are on the sex offenders list, but wants to think about it. I said that didn't cut it in my view. The one does not equate to the other”.

Sitrick continued: “I said there is a huge difference between being convicted for having a 17 year old give a massage in her underwear and being called a pedophile [sic] in headlines throughout an entire country and indeed the world. What if you could show hundreds of millions of dollars of business/reputational damage? He agreed that was a good point and wanted to think about it”.

‘Toothless’ Complaints Commission

He said Tweed had suggested a complaint to the Press Complaints Commission, which he said was “toothless”, but would “put some pressure on the media”.

The following day, Tweed emailed Epstein himself to say a Daily Telegraph story had referred to him allegedly using a private fleet of aircraft to “transfer under-aged girls around the world for illegal sex”. Tweed told Epstein he assumed “this is a reference to allegations emanating from the civil law suits” but asked him for “additional background” to decide if he should refer to that when complaining to the newspaper.

Epstein responded that “there are no truths to any of this” and copied in another lawyer. A reply from an unnamed figure said the allegations were “an over-statement” but cautioned: “I would refrain from saying anything for reasons we can discuss.” It's unclear if that final message went to Tweed.

Amid discussion about the issue, criminal attorney Martin Weinberg told the trio it was “potentially adverse to [Epstein's] legal situation even if positive for the media defense to be citing to facts [sic] of cases, ages of girls…”

Epstein told Tweed and Sitrick: “I do not want to start a fight over the girl, its a presciption [sic] for rebuttal and an encouragement for them to claim others so and so”.

The following day, Tweed sent a robust solicitor's letter to the Daily Telegraph, denouncing “grossly inaccurate and persistent references to him being a 'paedophile'”.

He stated: “Our client is not, as your headline article alleges, a convicted paedophile. Although he has been convicted of soliciting prostitutes, and procuring a person under 18 for prostitution, he has served his time for that offence. As a matter of record, but without seeking to justify the offence, the girls in question were not pre-pubescent.”

Describing these as “defamatory allegations” and “malicious falsehoods”, Tweed added: “The false and distorted terminology used by you to describe our client in your vitriolic attack on his character is simply not true on any interpretation of the word 'paedophile'.

“He has not been convicted nor been accused of being a paedophile (a pejorative that has a very specific medical definition), apart from by certain elements of the tabloid press in their recent reports on his friendship with Prince Andrew.

“Our client however should be entitled to expect more accurate and credible reporting from a respected broadsheet such as the Daily Telegraph, which is supposed to have significantly higher standards than the sensationalised and exaggerated reporting of the tabloids.

“Our client is entitled, at the very least, to the publication of a categoric clarification and apology, in terms to be first agreed with us, as a matter of some urgency.”

Claiming that Epstein had never been accused of being a paedophile was, even then, a strange claim. The investigation which saw Epstein first plead guilty in 2008 after a deeply controversial plea bargain began with a complaint from the stepmother of a 14-year-old girl who alleged she had been asked to strip to her underwear and give Epstein a massage in exchange for a large sum of money.

At that time, Haley Robson told Palm Beach police that she had brought multiple girls between the ages of 14 and 16 to Epstein. Police discovered very young girls in Epstein's house when they raided.

The same day as that message from Tweed, Epstein was sent a Mail on Sunday article with the headline 'How Prince Andrew shared a room at Epstein's Caribbean hideaway with a busty blonde who claimed she was a brain surgeon'.

Sitrick told his client that he should get Tweed to write to the paper to complain, taking issue with something which wasn't related to the headline — whether a man quoted in the article had been in the FBI.

Sitrick said: “If we don't want to elevate it to a lawyer level, I could make a call to an editor there, but a letter will have more impact.”

In his response, which was copied to Tweed, Epstein didn't dispute the article's central allegations but claimed it was based on a book stolen from his property by a member of staff. As Epstein's team pressed Ferguson to retract key elements of her Evening Standard interview, Tweed suggested to Epstein that he phone her lawyer, Rod Christie-Miller at Schillings.

He proposed telling Ferguson's lawyer that in relation to the word “paedophile”, the “use of this totally unfounded and provocative description” stemmed from Ferguson's interview.

He suggested saying Ferguson had been “at best, somewhat disingenuous in her comments, given that she… has been more than happy to enjoy our client's hospitality up until very recently” and warned there may be “follow-up action” taken by Epstein which would cause Ferguson and Andrew “embarrassment”.

On April 6, Tweed told Epstein he'd spoken to Ferguson's lawyer and told him “we are continuing to put pressure on the Daily Telegraph to retract their outrageous description of you”.

‘An absolute rag’

In an undated message to Epstein, Tweed drew his attention to the March 18 front cover of Private Eye, describing it as “very provocative” and adding: “Although PRIVATE EYE is an absolute rag of a publication, nonetheless it is currently sitting in a prominent position on newsagents' stands here in the UK.”

Tweed said he “firmly believed” he should approach Ferguson's lawyer to tell him “we may have no alternative but to discredit his clients by pointing out that she and her daughters were among the first to welcome Jeffrey upon your release from prison, and that all three have been frequent house guests in the intervening period”, telling Epstein: “I think I now should take the gloves off.”

The legal pressure caused consternation for Ferguson and Andrew. Eight days later, Epstein got an email from an intermediary whose name has been censored. The intermediary copied and pasted from a message they'd been sent — seemingly by Andrew.

They said Tweed's message was “our reason for concern” and continued: “The tenor of this email is somewhat alarming and could be construed as attempted blackmail.

“Unfortunately S cannot 'reconsider her current stance' as she never spoke to the Telegraph newspaper and so cannot be held responsible for their views and nor could she make them change their view. This has to be a matter for JE's lawyers to sort out with them directly.”

They added: “We are both devastated that JE is being treated in this manner and we would very much like to help him but are somewhat constrained by me and my position and the fact that the media, in the UK, are taking a totally unreasonable attitude towards JE.”

Referring to Tweed, they added: “We both hope that the lawyer can be brought into line or to heel.”

The intermediary who forwarded the message to Epstein said: “I think this is causing as much heartache to them as it is to you”.

Less than a fortnight later, Ferguson sent a “totally private and confidential” email to Epstein to insist she'd never called him a paedophile, although she couldn't bring herself to write the word beyond 'P'. She said: “And I did NOT. I would NOT.”

However, she said she had to “protect my own brand” as a children's author.

Tweed suggested a statement by Ferguson in which she would denounce “the totally distorted press headlines”.

Epstein told his advisers sceptically: “I think she is full of it”.

Tweed warned that “we need to strike a balance” between what Ferguson “can be persuaded to say” and what would “maintain her credibility” to make the statement. If she “goes too far, the press will be over her like a rash,” he said, and this would be “counter productive”.

He said an alternative was for her to write a letter to Epstein which they could forward to newspapers as part of claims for “distorting the facts and breaching Jeffrey's privacy/confidentiality”.

Sitrick said: “I like the idea of the letter….question is, could we leak or release it?”

Tweed replied: “The idea would be to not only disclose the letter to the Telegraph, but also to release the letter with an appropriate press release at the appropriate stage.” He said it would be ideal to have Ferguson's permission to release the letter.

Humble apology by Duchess to Epstein

A day later, Ferguson sent Epstein a gushing email, telling him “I must humbly apologise” and he had always been a “supreme friend to me and my family”.

She apologised for having shunned him in the preceding period, saying: “I was advised in no uncertain terms to having nothing to do with you, and not to speak or email you, and if I did, I would cause more problems to both You and The Duke and myself… The Palace system is frightening…”

Sitrick questioned Ferguson's claims to have been misquoted, saying that if she was, then she shouldn't object to clarifying the matter.

On May 2, Tweed approved a draft letter for Ferguson, saying that it would “put some timely pressure on the Telegraph in particular”.

But the strategy didn't seem to be working. Epstein's partner Ghislaine Maxwell forwarded details of a six-page Tatler article on her.

Epstein told Tweed: “Put them on notice”, adding: “We have not gotten any traction, it seems”.

The next day, Tweed sent a letter of claim — a serious legal threat — to Tatler.

The ferocious letter referred to “your grossly inaccurate and defamatory references to him being a 'paedophile', going on to largely repeat what he'd said to the Telegraph and demanding an urgent apology.

That same day, Tweed spoke to Ferguson's PR man — James Henderson of Bell Pottinger — about an interview Ferguson was doing with Oprah Winfrey.

Tweed told Epstein he “left him in no doubt as to what is required”, adding: “No resistance from him.”

Tweed now suggested pre-emptive pressure on journalists who were writing about Epstein. He proposed a letter to Vanity Fair writer Edward Klein, saying “we are taking the precautionary step of putting you on notice that our client will take legal action in the event that the aforesaid defamatory reference is repeated in your article”.

However, Epstein appears to have blocked this, telling Tweed: “Lets not [sic]”.

Tweed then tried another tactic, telling Epstein that he had an idea to “crack this open by the back door so to speak”.

He said he had “a generally good relationship” with the legal managers of The Guardian, The Times and The Sunday Times, which also had called Epstein a paedophile.

He said that “indeed The Sunday Times often retain me, if only to stop me suing them” and “it may be that I could persuade one or both of them to publish a clarification” which they could use “as leverage in relation to the other publications”.

At this point, Tweed said Epstein probably had “very little information about me” and sent him a series of press stories about himself. Several weeks later, Tweed sent Epstein a proposed statement by Ferguson which would say: “There was never a claim of paedophilia by the authorities, me, or anyone else for that matter.”

The by now protracted negotiation still hadn't got Epstein what he wanted. In late May, he emailed Tweed: “paul just get me the letter. don't worry about publication restrcitins? [sic]”. Tweed replied: “Ok”.

By early June, the situation still hadn't been resolved.

Tweed emailed Epstein to say that he'd been told not to incur any further fees without Epstein's approval, but asked: “Can I take it that you are happy to pay for the work I have been and am currently undertaking on your behalf?”

Two days later, Tweed assured Ferguson's representative that if she sent them a letter it would only be released with her permission.

On July 3, the Belfast lawyer emailed Epstein to update him. He said there had still been no response from the Telegraph “which is, to say the least, unusual”.

He suggested they complain to the Press Complaints Commission, explaining: “The attraction about such a complaint is that we can adopt a two pronged approach in complaining not only about the inappropriate use of the word 'paedophile', but also the newspaper's failure to acknowledge, never mind address, our complaint.

“If we were successful in having the complaint upheld, then this could be used as a basis to pressurise the Mail and other publishers to at least remove the offending online references.”

At this point, the phone hacking scandal exploded and the News of The World suddenly shut.

Tweed now contacted the Met Police on behalf of Epstein, but was told by them that they hadn't evidence that the numbers they'd been given had been hacked.

In August, a message sent on Ferguson's behalf then said she was “keen to secure the rights back to the Mothers Army Domain names which Mr Epstein brought for her and it seems we need to conclude the first matter before we can discuss the second”.

Tweed said she seemed to be “horse trading”.

How much money Tweed got out of Epstein remains unclear. On April 30, he sent a bill for “a further interim payment of £10,000 (in addition to the earlier payment in the same amount), against our billing currently standing at £13,250”.

Epstein thanked him but added: “moving forward please spend no time without my express approval”.

Tweed explained that “to ensure that we don't end up putting 'fuel on the fire', we have had to be more cautious in our research and advices than would normally be the case....thus the higher costs.”

By September 23, Tweed was struggling to get Epstein to pay up.

In the last of the messages released, he said: “Obviously I value you as very much a blue chip client and I want to ensure that you are happy not only with my advice, but also that you are being charged for it. I would be prepared to write off 50% of the bill total, in return for payment for the balance at this stage. Would this be acceptable to you?”

Tweed wasn't the only person struggling to get Epstein to part with his cash. Sitrick — the man who'd brought Tweed on board — was also not being paid.

By June 2011, Epstein owed $103,517 to “the man you call when you have money and step in some shit”, as the Columbia Journalism Review described Sitrick.

Sitrick sued Epstein, obtaining in 2014 a default judgment in his favour.

There is no suggestion that Tweed ever visited Epstein's properties or was involved in any inappropriate sexual behaviour.

It is also true that not all that is now known about Epstein was known in 2011. Yet a lot was known. That's why so many of his former friends were deserting the convicted sex offender judged at high risk of re-offending.

‘Some limited advice’

Last weekend, Tweed said in a brief statement: “I provided some limited advice to Epstein in 2011. I never met him but had an exchange of emails and phone calls with him.

“My engagement was terminated after several months due to a variety of factors, including that my advices were not acceptable to Epstein.”

In response to a series of questions from the Belfast Telegraph, Tweed's firm, WP Tweed & Co (in 2011, Tweed worked for another firm, Johnsons), said in a statement: “You will appreciate that Mr Tweed is necessarily restricted in the extent to which he can discuss details of his engagement in this matter.

“He is, however, aware that a considerable amount of information is already publicly available regarding the work he undertook on behalf of Epstein.

“For the avoidance of any doubt, he categorically rejects the suggestion that he acted in any way inappropriately. At all times, Mr Tweed acted on his client's instructions regarding the strictly accurate nature of media reporting about him.

“He acted fully in accordance with his professional and regulatory obligations, providing legal advice strictly within those parameters and based on the information available to him. Any suggestion to the contrary is entirely unfounded.

“We would also remind you that a lawyer should never be conflated with their client or their client's causes. Mr Tweed's role was confined to providing legal advice in the discharge of his professional duties.

“He did not accede to every request made by Epstein or his advisers. Indeed, his refusal to do so ultimately resulted in the termination of his engagement.”

Tweed has long rejected any suggestion he stifles important public interest journalism.

A year ago this week, he gave evidence to the House of Commons' Northern Ireland Affairs Committee. SDLP leader Claire Hanna asked if he had ever initiated proceeding which could be described as “for the purpose of stifling the voices of…troublesome critics”.

Tweed replied: “No, I don't believe I have...that should never happen” and went on to say it was “absolute nonsense” to say he was “a lawyer to be feared”, saying he was “in a lucky position” where “I can pick and choose my cases”.

Tweed would go on to work for both Andrew and Ferguson.

We asked why he had done so, given that these emails show he was aware of how closely they were linked to Epstein. He did not specifically address that question.

Less than a year and a half ago, Tweed said of the then Prince Andrew: “I don't believe he did anything wrong.”

In that interview with The Sunday Independent, he described Epstein as “an absolute predator”. When asked why he didn't disclose at that point that he had acted for this predator, trying to curb coverage of his nefarious behaviour, Tweed again did not specifically address that question.

In 2021, Tweed gave evidence to the Assembly's Finance Committee, which was examining possible reform of the libel laws.

He told MLAs: “I have absolute sympathy for a situation in which a journalist feels that they have been in some way threatened in the wrong by a billionaire who decides, “I'm going to use my money to knock you out”. That needs to be dealt with.”

To view more than 20 of the documents on which this report is based, please visit belfasttelegraph.co.uk

Palm Beach in Florida is a long way from Belfast, but …

FROM MITCHELL TO MANDELSON, EPSTEIN’S LINKS STRETCHED FAR AND WIDE

Sam McBride, Belfast Telegraph, February 7th, 2026

Given he lived the high life as an international moneyman of mystery for decades, with a black book filled with the names of the world's rich, influential and powerful, not to mention a private jet, it isn't surprising that a “local angle” to the Epstein story can be found just about anywhere.

Through examining the latest batch of Epstein files, along with information gleaned from previous reporting and unsealed court documents, a picture of Epstein's ties to Northern Ireland going back decades can be sketched.

This latest picture features two figures connected to Northern Ireland, albeit one with much stronger and more distinguished ties than the other.

Good Friday Agreement peace negotiator George Mitchell's acquaintance with Epstein goes back decades, as does former Northern Ireland Secretary Peter Mandelson's.

Flight logs from Epstein's private jet, branded the 'Lolita Express', show that Mitchell was a passenger on several occasions on US trips in 1995, the same year the senator was appointed Bill Clinton's US Special Envoy for Northern Ireland.

Both Mandelson and Mitchell deny any wrongdoing regarding Epstein.

Mandelson — once described as a “Bond villain with a filofax”, who became a close confidant of Epstein — was appointed as Secretary of State in 1999.

Belfast Stop

In 2000, Epstein's private jet touched down at Belfast International Airport after flying from London on July 12.

The jet was carrying Epstein and Ghislaine Maxwell and departed for Bangor, Maine, the same day. It is unclear why they stopped in Belfast.

Two years later, Mitchell's name comes up again as the signatory to a letter in Epstein's “birthday book”, in which the former US senator described his friendship with Epstein as a “blessing”.

How and when Mitchell became acquainted with Epstein is unclear.

According to his birthday book note it appears to have been in the early 90s following a chance encounter at an airport in Washington.

It is also unclear when precisely Mandelson came into contact with Epstein.

However, in 2002 he wrote a memo encouraging then Prime Minister Tony Blair to meet the financier, according to The Times.

Mandelson's relationship with Maxwell goes back to the late 80s, and in turn her association with Epstein began in the 90s.

This leaves open a potential overlap between Mandelson's tenure as Northern Ireland Secretary, which ended in January 2001, and led to calls for investigations as to whether Epstein visited Hillsborough Castle.

‘Best Pal’

A 2003 message from Mandelson is also included in Epstein's “birthday book”, in which he describes the financier as his “best pal”.

Any nefarious interpretation of all these connections can be explained away — and, indeed it was — by those involved as they happened before the summer of 2008, when Epstein pleaded guilty to soliciting sex from a 14-year-old girl in a controversial plea deal with US prosecutors.

Even while serving his 'sentence', Epstein was allowed to spend 12 hours a day, six days a week outside the jail for 'work release' — and was still orbiting his social circles.

Mandelson wrote emails to Epstein showing his support for his friend and stayed at his plush Manhattan apartment.

Mitchell's name is also mentioned in emails from this period. A message from one of Epstein's assistants to Nili Priell — wife of former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak — read: “Jeffrey wanted to wish you and Mr Barak a Happy Passover… he also wanted me to let you know that Senator Mitchell is one of Jeffrey's oldest and closest friends… and if you needed Jeffrey's help, to just let him know!”

After Epstein's release in July 2009, emails spanning 2010 to 2015, released in recent days, appear to show contact between Mitchell and Epstein's office.

There is also an email dated August 13, 2013, from Epstein to his executive assistant Lesley Groff, in which he asks her to “contact George Mitchell tell him I will be in thurs and fri, and Mandelson will be at the house if he has time”.

Another email sent to Epstein from an assistant hours later on the same day states: “Please call Senator Mitchell… he just called and I tried to connect you but you had left the office…”

Epstein wrote in 2011: “George Mitchell is my very close friend.”

‘You have senator Mitchell at 4.30 today’

Another to Epstein from December 2012 reads: “You have senator Mitchell at 4.30 today.”

On November 6, 2013, an email to Epstein mentions an appointment “with Senator George Mitchell”.

The former senator previously said he had no contact with Epstein following his 2008 conviction and this week a spokesperson for Mitchell said he did not observe, suspect or have any knowledge of Epstein engaging in “illegal or inappropriate conduct with underage women”.

They said members of Epstein's staff extended a small number of invitations to the senator, all of which he declined or deflected.

Belfast is also mentioned in passing in an exchange released in May 2023, in which a fashion model friend of Epstein asks the sex trafficker for help in obtaining a tourist visa at short notice so he could surreptitiously work in New York for a campaign for label Abercrombie and Fitch.

Epstein advises the model to try “Ireland, Belgium”, and the model states “we r trying Belfast”.

Separately, an email from 2010 notes then NIO Minister Hugo Swire had asked a “very direct question” to one of Andrew's “trusted” associates about the then Duke's relationship with Epstein, according to an email Andrew sent to the paedophile businessman in May 2010. Hours later, Epstein was in contact with Peter Mandelson, a former Northern Ireland Secretary, probing for information about Mr Swire.

Like a reverse Midas, everything Epstein touches turns to dust. This week has seen both Mitchell's Northern Ireland legacy and Mandelson's political career largely destroyed.

With more Epstein files still not released, it seems the convicted paedophile's ghost will continue to haunt many who once called him a friend.