Dead Man Running: A True Story of a Secret Agent's Escape from the IRA and MI5 (15 page)

A few weeks after my trial I returned to my home late one night to collect a change of clothes. I parked my car at the bottom of the lane behind the house and went to the door. As I was about to put the key in the lock I realised the door was almost off its hinges and the thought crossed my mind that the flat might have been booby-trapped. I was deeply suspicious. I believed that if a burglar had broken in the door would have simply been left open, not pulled almost closed again. I realised that I had to presume that the IRA were now aware of my new identity and my address and I also knew the sort of tricks they would play to get me. One was to booby-trap either my home or my car.

I immediately retraced my steps and, on my mobile phone, dialled ‘999’. I gave the police officer my name and address and asked him to send two officers immediately to my address as I thought it had recently been broken into. I also told the officer to phone Blyth police station and tell them that the home of Martin David Ashe had been broken into. I explained that they would understand the seriousness of the report.

Within minutes a police car arrived and I explained to the officers that I was Martin Ashe who had recently been acquitted at Newcastle Crown Court on a charge of perverting the course of justice.

‘
Aye,’ one replied, ‘we know who you are. You used to work undercover in Belfast.’

‘
Aye,’ I replied, not wanting to give anything else away.

‘
Have you been inside?’ one asked.

‘
No,’ I replied, ‘it might be booby-trapped.’

‘
Fuck,’ one officer said to the other, ‘call the station and get a couple of dogs down.’

As we waited the senior officer told me, ‘As we were driving here I told my mate that I knew who you were. I also told him that if we saw anyone with an AK47 or anyone hanging around looking suspicious, turn round the car and get the fuck out of the place.’

Minutes later a police van arrived with a handler and his Alsatian. The Alsatian was sent in to search the place. We stood well back in case the door had been booby-trapped. Five minutes later the police decided it was safe to go in. Nearly all my expensive goods had been stolen but, thank God, there was no sign that it had been the IRA. It was an ordinary, run of the mill burglary. But that tiny incident, and the reaction of the police, made me realise that at least the Northumbria Police finally did realise that there was a real threat to my life.

To me and my solicitors it seemed extraordinary that Burton & Burton should be stopped from revealing the identity of the agency and they represented at the same time as the Northumbria Police were dragging their feet, ensuring that my two identities and my address, which had been revealed in open court, should become common knowledge and not seemingly caring a damn what might happen to me in the meantime. Finally, on 11 June, I was informed that I would be issued with the necessary documentation to support a new identity but only if I agreed to accept certain terms.

In September 1997, four months after my court case, Burton & Burton finally outlined the new terms on which they would agree to relocate me with a new identity. I would have to agree to behave discreetly, maintain a low profile and not visit Northern Ireland. After pressure from Members of Parliament and my solicitors, the government authorities finally made me a new offer, a derisory £3,000 to cover all my removal costs, meaning that a move to a similar small flat in a different area on mainland Britain would probably cost me at least £20,000 after I had sold my Blyth apartment. I just didn’t have that kind of money. It seemed from their risible offer that the various authorities and agencies were happy for me to continue living at my old address but with the laughable fig-leaf protection of a new identity. The government agencies would have been fully aware that such protection would be absolutely useless. But why? Why were the agencies continuing what appeared to be a vendetta against me, making me insulting offers which they knew I could not accept because I didn’t have the money? They must have known that the longer I stayed living at my Blyth address the easier target I would become for anyone determined to find me, including the IRA.

My SB friends in Belfast believed that one of the reasons the Crown authorities were happy for me to stay in Blyth was not just to facilitate the IRA in their search for me but that they did not want to fork out any more money for my protection. The agencies would have known that my Blyth home was now blighted because it had been a property targeted by the IRA. As a result, trying to sell the flat would be very difficult because no one would want to live there, fearing a fire-bomb attack or an unwelcome visitor in the night. The authorities knew that if they had to sell my home on the open market it would fetch very poor money, thus doubling the total cost of my new identity and relocation. It may have been a cynical view but I believed it because I recognised that the authorities no longer needed my aid or assistance. I had done my duty and was now considered a nuisance, no longer a hero.

My solicitor wrote to Burton & Burton explaining the financial implications of the move away from Blyth which I and many authorities on the Northern Ireland terrorist threat knew to be essential if my life was not to be put at risk. My solicitor wrote; Mr Ashe must clearly relocate. He presently has a mortgage on his flat and has spent some £15,000 upon it which will not be recoverable on a sale. He was obliged to sell his car as its number had become known in the court case and he lost approaching £3,900 on that. He has incurred considerable expenses in living away from home while the authorities have been endeavouring to resolve this matter. His house was burgled in his absence where a considerable loss was incurred as he received only second-hand value on his insurance claim. Clearly he will need new accommodation which should either be provided or alternatively financed . . . To deal effectively with the cost of relocating will cost Mr McGartland something in the region of £30,000. Your offer of (£3,000) removal expenses is in our client’s view impractical, unrealistic and derisory.’ He was right in every instance.

Every aspect of my life now seemed dogged by red tape – the Home Office, mysterious government agencies, the police and my old employers, the Royal Ulster Constabulary. But throughout these weeks and months, which grew into years, the various authorities continued to lie at every turn in an effort to deny that my identity and my address had been revealed in open court by the Northumbria Police.

Solicitors working with Burton & Burton, as well as the Northumbria Police and the Crown Prosecution Service, denied time and again that the police, while giving evidence, had revealed my home address in Blyth, in open court. They would go further, claiming that I had been responsible for revealing my name, ‘McGartland’, during the Newcastle court case. Of course they were right. I had done so because the prosecution had forced me to do so. The Crown Prosecution Service, and those dark forces advising them, should have known that by taking me to court they would force me to reveal my name had been McGartland and my career as an undercover agent – it was my one and only defence. There was no other way I could convince the jury that I had taken the action I did, not to cheat justice, but to escape from the IRA. But for two years the CPS had been deciding whether to prosecute me or not. In that time I was led to understand that they had taken advice from the Home Office and, of course, the security services including MI5. They knew that by taking me to court I would have to reveal my name to prove my innocence. It seemed, beyond peradventure, that they wanted me to reveal my true identity in open court.

And yet, shamefully, after the court case, they then used the fact that I had revealed my name to accuse me of betraying my own identity. Did they really think that I would have happily revealed in open court that my name was McGartland knowing that I was among the top five people the Proves had vowed to kill?

Their behaviour made me sick. Both the Northumbria Police and Burton & Burton’s clients, whom I would forever believe were representing MI5, steadfastly denied any responsibility for revealing my identity, arguing that I had been the guilty party. The Northumbria Police had for years exposed the name McGartland on their computer files so that every one of their officers would know that Ashe and McGartland were one and the same person; my two names had been blazoned on the front cover of the Crown Prosecution files which were taken into open court; and a Northumbria police officer had readily given out my full home address in open court. And yet, despite this overwhelming evidence, the police and MI5 had the audacity to blame me for revealing my identity.

Once again I wondered why the Crown authorities were so determined to make me the guilty party when I had won the court case so handsomely, making the Northumbria Police look, at the kindest, incompetent and, at the worst, vengeful. Others, particularly among my friends in the SB back in Belfast, wondered if there had been another reason to drag me into court on a flawed charge that was thrown out in just ten minutes.

In one letter to Burton & Burton my solicitor related in no uncertain terms how serious the question of my security had become; ‘The matter of problems with Northumbria Police needs to be addresses as quite clearly further breaches of security would render the whole exercise of producing a new identity worthless. It was of course Northumbria Police which made our client’s identity public knowledge, but unfortunately there had been previous security lapses. One former employee of that force was dismissed for making disclosures about Mr McGartland. There were other breaches made known to our client’s previous solicitor . . .

‘
We would remind you that it was not our client’s media attention that led to the disclosure of his identity nor his book
Fifty Dead Men Walking
but the actions of Northumbria Police. You will be aware that we have previously been in conflict as to the details of our client’s address being given out in court. Our client has now had confirmation from Mark Blacklock of the
Daily Express
, who apparently took a shorthand note of all the proceedings, that PC Weldon, in his evidence-in-chief, gave out our client’s full present address. There was a substantial public gallery at that time. His name and location is in any event known and of course he appears on the DHSS computer system relating to his benefits. You will know that the IRA have access to this.

‘
Our client is now known and recognised in this immediate area. He has received conflicting advice from Northumbria Police as to his security position and what he should do about it. We make it very plain that we do not believe that he is safe at his present address and should be relocated forthwith. The longer this goes on the more danger he is in.’

Because it seemed that neither I nor my solicitors were making any headway with the Northumbria Police or those mysterious government agencies fronted by Burton & Burton, my solicitors decided to take up my case at the highest level – with the Home Secretary Jack Straw. They asked him to personally intervene in my case. He was informed of my situation, emphasising that authoritative commentators on the Northern Ireland scene believed I was in ‘real and immediate danger’.

Three weeks later I received an extraordinary letter from the Home Secretary claiming once again that I had been responsible for revealing my own identity and repeating the lie that the prosecution had not disclosed my address in court. Inspection of the official court transcript of my trial before Newcastle Crown Court, revealed that while giving evidence on oath, PC Weldon, under pressure from the Crown prosecution lawyer, did in fact state my full home address in open court. There was no doubt whatsoever. And despite the fact that the court transcript was available to the Home Secretary, his advisors, the CPS and the Northumbria Police, they all continued to deny that my address had been revealed by the police during my trial. It seemed to me beyond any reasonable doubt that MI5, the Crown Prosecution Service, the Northumbria Police and the RUC, as well as the Home Secretary himself, were ranged against me in my battle for protection, a new identity and a relocation to a safe place. And all I had done was to try, in some small way, to play my part in bringing some security to the Protestants and Catholics of Northern Ireland.

It appeared that the authorities ranged against me, including the Home Secretary, were trying to find a way out of their responsibilities and they claimed that in writing my book
Fifty Dead Men Walking
I had been responsible for exposing my own identity. That accusation was without foundation. In fact I had taken extreme precautions to ensure that no photographs were ever taken of me without my appearing in heavy disguise and no one knew that my new identity was in the name of Ashe. I may well have raised my profile by writing a book but I never once revealed to anyone that I was ‘Martin Ashe’ in any article or TV or radio programme. Not a soul on Tyneside where I had lived for over six years knew that my real name was McGartland and they would never have done so if it hadn’t been for the Northumbria Police. All these facts were explained forcefully by my solicitor in letters to our adversaries.

One such letter from my solicitors, Alderson Dodds, to solicitos Burton & Burton read; ‘Our client wishes to know which organ of the state he is in effect contracting with. Our client reserves the right to make public his legitimate complaints to the tardy approach that has been adopted towards his resettlement. It is doubtful whether anything would have been forthcoming but for public pressure. Our client has never appeared undisguised in any media appearance. He has no intention of altering that. For several years he kept the identity of Ashe secret and the area of his relocation. Such contact that he did have with the media and his publishers was as McGartland. He has no plans to change that.’