Ministers aware of UDR links with loyalists, archives show

Documents uncovered in the National Archives have shown for the first time that the government was aware of widespread collusion between Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers and loyalist paramilitaries.

The files - including one headed "Subversion in the UDR" - confirm that Whitehall knew that as many as 15% of the regiment's soldiers were involved in collusion as early as 1973 and suspected that as many as 200 army rifles and sub machine guns had been passed to loyalist groups.

Margaret Thatcher, shortly after becoming opposition leader, was warned in a briefing by Downing Street that the UDR was heavily infiltrated by paramilitaries, another document reveals. Despite official concerns, the largest regiment in the UK was allowed to expand. By 1976 it consisted of 11 battalions.

The UDR was deployed within Northern Ireland and had been formed in 1970 to replace the notorious police "B Specials". By the time it was disbanded in 1992 it was almost 99% Protestant.

The newly released Ministry of Defence documents were unearthed in the National Archive at Kewby the Derry-based Pat Finucane Centre and Justice for the Forgotten which represents victims of the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings. They have been published in Northern Ireland by the daily Irish News.

The 14-page report, entitled Subversion in the UDR, is marked "secret" and contains responses from senior MoD civil servants. One comments that he wishes he "could say the contents came as a surprise, but cannot". Other letters make clear that the report was passed on to the joint intelligence committee and No 10.

The military intelligence report raises concerns that members of the regiment colluded in a series of weapons raids by loyalists on UDR bases in Lurgan, Co Armagh, Belfast, and Claudy RUC station in Co Londonderry.

The "best single source of weapons, and the only significant source of modern weapons, for Protestant extremist groups was the UDR", it notes. On the high level of collusion, it estimates that between five and 15% of the regiment had close links with loyalist paramilitaries. A letter in the file suggests the report's author put more emphasis on the "85-95% not thought likely to be members of Protestant extremist organisations".

Requirement for recruits to provide a reference had "been successful as part of the PR exercise", but it was open to abuse and "can add little" to the screening, it was said.

Jane Winter, director of British-Irish Rights Watch, said yesterday the documents added to long-standing concerns about collusion and "raised questions about why it was allowed to go on for as long as it did".

During the Troubles, 257 serving or former members of the UDR were killed by republican paramilitaries.