Dead Man Running: A True Story of a Secret Agent's Escape from the IRA and MI5 (14 page)

In reality, I had not the faintest idea where I could hide or where I could go. My only friends lived in and around Newcastle and I had no intention of putting pressure on them. They had all known me as ‘Ashie’ or ‘Semtex’ but now it was no joke. This was for real. I couldn’t ask them to put me up or stay at their place for a few weeks because that would be unfair. They may have been matey and kind to me for a couple of years but they weren’t family and I had no right to ask such favours. Before my trial they had no idea I was a wanted man but now they knew everything and I had no wish to ask them to pit themselves against the IRA.

My solicitors had issued a statement immediately after my court case saying, ‘It is Mr McGartland’s view that the prosecution should never have been brought in the light of his services to the public in Northern Ireland. The prosecution has exposed him to further danger which his resettlement on the mainland was meant to avoid. Mr McGartland believes that the prosecution was brought with total disregard for his own safety and that the Crown showed no insight into the real and particular dangers encountered by those living in the shadow of the IRA. Mr McGartland now faces the prospect of having to make a new life all over again.’

In many respects the revelation that I was not really Martin Ashe, but a former undercover agent who had infiltrated the IRA, put the fear of God into some people but also, thank goodness, won me a number of friends. Janice, the lovely lady who lived in the flat below me in Blyth, wrote a letter to her MP, Ronnie Campbell, stating; ‘Since I found out that my neighbour is really Martin McGartland I have been extremely concerned for my personal safety. I am aware that his identity and his address are now known by a large number of people in Blyth. He has been staying away from his flat since the court case but I am worried that he might move back in. I think that something should be done as a matter of urgency as I am extremely worried and the stress is affecting my health.’

A few days after my trial a group of women from North Tyneside who knew me as Martin Ashe organised a petition demanding that the Home Secretary provide me with a new identity and a new home. It read; ‘Martin McGartland risked his life to save others. He now deserves the full support of the British Government.’ Blyth MP Ronnie Campbell wrote to Northern Ireland Secretary Mo Mowlam asking her to intervene and put pressure on her colleagues to relocate me and give me a new identity. Mr Campbell told me that his weekly surgery had been inundated with letters and people arriving on his doorstep all arguing my case. He also said that he would be raising the issue with the Home Secretary. Within a few weeks more than three thousand people had signed the petition urging quick action to ensure my safety. I found it all very embarrassing but also very kind that people who did not even know me should go to such trouble because they feared my life had been put in jeopardy. I later learned from Mr Campbell that he was personally speaking to both Jack Straw, the Home Secretary, and Mo Mowlam about my case.

Following a television programme screened in England in June 1997, detailing my life on the run, a number of Members of Parliament came forward, all urging the Home Secretary to provide me with a new identity and a new home in a different part of the country. Labour MP Harry Barnes, who represents north-east Derbyshire, commented, ‘It is absolutely crucial McGartland is given a new identity and I want to see this unfortunate situation resolved. His life is in considerable danger.’

A month later my solicitors did receive an offer from Burton & Burton, a Nottingham- based law firm acting on behalf of a body called ‘Crown Authorities’ in which I was offered a new passport, driving licence, National Insurance number and NHS card but not a single penny towards the purchase of a new property or removal costs. In fact, they stated categorically that, ‘it was not possible for the authorities to make any financial provision towards moving home’. In exchange for a new identity, the authorities expected me to somehow pay for everything, including selling my small Blyth flat, buying a new flat in a different part of Britain and paying for all the costs including legal fees, buying and selling costs, surveyor’s fees as well as removal costs. They also refused to understand that Blyth was one of the poorest areas of Britain and purchasing similar accommodation in another part of Britain would probably be double the cost of my Blyth flat. It seemed to me the Crown authorities were deliberately offering me a deal which I could only refuse, for to say ‘yes’ would have meant me sinking into heavy debt with little or no chance of being able to repay the mortgage and all the other costs. I knew from past experience and from talking to SB officers in Belfast that most former informants and agents were made generous awards by authorities because it was felt that society owed them as much. My treatment was so Machiavellian that I could not believe the Home Office would stoop to such tactics.

It is, of course, always difficult for former informants relocated to mainland Britain to find a job because with new identities, new National Insurance numbers and driving licences, they could never tell any prospective employer of their former work experience or the jobs they had carried out gaining experience for the job on offer. And, of course, prospective employers could never be told what these men, and sometimes women, had really been doing for the previous few years because that would defeat the whole object of the exercise. As a result, most former undercover agents tried to find a self-employed job but that was also difficult because they had little or no experience in commerce or business.

During the weeks following the trial and all the publicity I did not return to my home, save on the odd occasion to collect clothes and some papers I needed to pursue my case, I used my car and, on occasions, trains and buses, criss-crossing the north of England, staying at many different places. I visited a couple of old mates but only stayed with them a night or two before moving on somewhere else. Sometimes I slept the night in my car, parked in inconspicuous places, but every morning when I awoke I was suffering from cramp and the effects of sleeping rough. In the damp the shoulder wound I had sustained after my leap from the window would cause me grief and pain but after a few hours, a cup of tea and a hot breakfast I would feel better. Most of the time I showered and shaved in motorway rest rooms because I wanted to make sure I didn’t look like some scumbag or young alcoholic. I kept going by convincing myself that living like this was far better than meeting an IRA gunman at home or exploding a UCBT when I jumped into my car, but it was still a miserable existence and I hated the idea that I was running away from the IRA.

During the weeks of travelling across the north of England only once did I suspect that I was being followed and it made my heart leap not only with fear but also with a sense of anticipation. I had come to discover that being on the run could be unutterably boring and a complete waste of time and yet, sometimes, I felt I was back in Northern Ireland, excited, even trembling at the very thought of running risks. Sometimes the frustration and the fear did obviously gnaw away at my subconscious and I would wake from my dreams with a start, expecting to find a gun pointing at my head. I had been far less worried during my years inside the IRA, though the danger was far more real and ever present. And yet, being on one’s own, not knowing from where the problems would come, made me more nervous than ever. Sometimes I would be sitting in a motorway cafe having a bite to eat and I would start trembling nervously for no apparent reason. I would try to control my nerves but that often proved difficult so I would quickly finish my meal, drink a glass of cold water and go outside, walking around for a few minutes or so to regain my composure. For some reason or other those little tricks worked for me and I would manage to regain my nerve and take off again, often driving down a motorway with not the faintest idea where my next port of call would be.

One day I tried getting far away from the world of traffic, lorries, cars and the hundreds of people who congregate at motorway cafes. I drove off the M6 and made my way to Wales, a country I had never visited before. I found myself in North Wales heading towards the glorious slate-coloured mountains of Snowdonia, the low, dark, cloud-filled sky hiding the top of the mountain range, and for a while I enjoyed the sheer peace and wild beauty of the desolate surroundings. I felt an urge to drink from the streams that were like torrents, falling sharply from the mountains above, sometimes cascading 50 or 60 feet before hitting more rocks and spraying the surrounding grass and moss. I parked the car by the roadside and walked up the steep rock-face of the mountain to a stream that seemed to encompass the memories of Northern Ireland where I used to walk as a young boy with my mother and sisters, a time when I had never heard of the Troubles. I cupped my hands and drank the cool, crystal-clear water, quenching my thirst and thinking how much I needed my family. I turned and looked out across the wonderful green expanse of country, dotted here and there with sheep minding their own business, and wondered if I could live in such a place. In my excited impetuosity I thought of climbing to the top of the mountain but as I looked up the sheer face of the cliff I realised that would be a stupid idea so I turned and walked back down to my car. I had been driving leisurely for another ten minutes or so around a host of mountain bends, looking down at the occasional sheer drop to the bottom of a ravine, when, all of a sudden, a large 32-ton truck came sweeping round the bend towards me, with the driving seemingly having problems keeping the vehicle on the correct side of the road. That woke me from my day-dream like an ice-cold shower and I realised in that split second that I was more at risk and more exposed here in the friendless mountains of Wales than in the maddening cauldron of motorway mania.

So, like a lonely traveller desperate for company, I turned round and headed back to my kind of civilisation, a feeling of warmth and bonhomie surging through me, as though I had rejoined the human race. As I queued for my cup of tea in a motorway service station I smiled in my happiness to the couple standing next to me. They looked at me as though as I was mad!

The real scare, however, occurred in the washroom of another motorway service station in Yorkshire. I had been washing as usual when two men with Irish accents walked in and I noted they seemed to be paying particular attention to me. They left and I followed some time later. As I was buying a newspaper the two men reappeared and one seemed to be watching me while the other moved outside into the car park. My heart began to beat faster and my mouth became dry. I walked out and returned to my car and the two men followed, walking only a matter of ten yards behind me. I had to presume that they were IRA but I knew I had to keep my cool and act as though nothing whatsoever was strange about them being there. When I reached the car I immediately bent down to check there was no UCBT and one of the men walked up and stood beside me.

‘
Have you lost something?’ he asked and I froze. The sound of the voice reminded me of the dangers of living in Belfast.

‘
No, just checking everything’s okay. I think I’ve got a fucking oil leak,’ I said.

‘
Do I know you?’ asked the more heavily built man.

‘
I don’t think so,’ I replied, now all but convinced that these two men were people I didn’t want to know. I wasn’t sure who they represented but in the manner of their dress, and their ages, they looked more like RUC plainclothes men than members of the IRA.

‘
Isn’t that a Belfast accent?’ I asked, hoping to diffuse the situation which seemed to be becoming more tense by the second.

‘
Aye,’ said the other one. ‘Are you also from the Province?’

The very fact that the man had used that phrase ‘from the Province’, immediately raised my hopes because that turn of phrase is used in Northern Ireland by Protestants, not Republicans.

‘
Aye,’ I replied, ‘though I’ve lived here for some years now.’

‘
We just thought we recognised you, that’s all,’ said the taller man.

‘
Don’t think so,’ I said. ‘I’ll be seeing you.’ I then opened the car door and slipped into the driver’s seat.

I watched as they clambered into a Transit van. Written on the side and the back was the name of a major road construction company. I drove away wondering if I was becoming paranoid or just taking sensible precautions. I knew I had just been sensible.

Following my acquittal in May 1997 the authorities seemed to be arguing about the real and immediate threat to me by the IRA. All correspondence to my solicitors, Alderson Dodds, came from Northumbria Police headquarters or Burton & Burton, who steadfastly refused to reveal whom they were representing in their dealings with me and my firm of solicitors. On a number of occasions my solicitor demanded of them that we be informed which government agency they were representing, but Burton & Burton refused every request. It seemed odd in 1997, when the new Labour Government promised more open government, that a firm of solicitors would refuse to admit which Government agency or agencies they represented. So I called my pals in the Branch in Belfast and they told me that the agency involved was in fact a Government agency. I suspected MI5 was the agency involved.

Within days of the trial finishing my solicitor wrote to the Chief Constable of Northumbria Police pointing out that my new identity – Martin David Ashe – had become publicly known following the prosecution by Northumbria Police and, as a result, my safety had become considerably prejudiced. He asked that I be granted a new identity immediately. Several applications for a new identity were made over the ensuing weeks, emphasising that a quick decision should be taken, but no reply was received from the Northumbria Police whose responsibility it was to give me a new identity.