Following his recent article on the impact of the Troubles on his family, St James’ man Liam McGrady has once again put pen to paper, this time to tell the story of the remarkable fate of the only man convicted of the brutal murder of his brother Anthony (16) by the UVF in August 1973.
MY mother Anna came face-to-face with the only man convicted of the horrific murders of Anthony McGrady, Ronnie McDonald and Sean McDonald, who were killed in a gun and bomb attack on a Cliftonville Road garage.
On Tuesday June 27 1974, William Crockett of Mayo Street, off the Shankill, was sentenced to seven years imprisonment for his part in the assassination of these three people – two innocent men and a 16-year-old boy. This leaves a lot to be said about our judicial system and how biased it was during our troubled times.
Young men from the Catholic community who were arrested and charged were getting between 15 and 20 years for shooting at the army and police without causing injuries or fatalities, and here was a 28-year-old loyalist UVF killer who played an active part in three sectarian killings only getting a seven-year sentence. He was released in 1977, less than a year-and-a-half for each killing.
It is a disgrace what my parents, William and Anna, and the wives and families of the two McDonald brothers must have felt. They got a life sentence, as they had to live the rest of their lives on this earth knowing the horrific deaths of Anthony, Ronnie and Sean.
The RUC got a lucky break when witness A, who lived on the Oldpark Road, said that at 11.30am on Saturday, August 25, 1974 he saw a gold-coloured Wolseley 1800-type vehicle that contained two men. It drove down the Oldpark Road fairly quickly before stopping on the side of the road. He saw two men get out of the car and walk to a grey Vauxhall motor which was parked at a bus stop just beyond the Westland Road. The two men got into the Vauxhall, which drove off along the Oldpark Road towards Ballysillan. He was able to give police the registration number of the Vauxhall. Crockett had used his own car to be the lead car and to be the getaway car. The killers made their escape after the shooting and bombing of the garage. Police identified William Crockett as the owner of the car.
Observation was kept by police on Mayo Street throughout the rest of that Saturday. However, the Vauxhall car was not seen and the observation was called off. William Crockett was arrested at his house at 11.30am on Sunday, August 26. Police informed him that they wished to speak to him with regards to his movements on the day of Anthony’s murder. Crockett agreed to go with them to Tennent Street Police Station.
During the course of the second interview, he told the interviewing officer that he would talk about his role but that he couldn’t tell the names of the other men. Crockett was then cautioned by Detective Sergeant Reid and made the following statement.
“On Saturday, August 25, 1973, I was standing at the corner of Brookmount Street on the Shankill Road watching the Royal Black Preceptory Parade. It would have been about 11am when I was approached by two men who asked me if I had a car. I said I had my own car and they asked me if I would be the lead car for them. I asked what they meant and they said they wanted someone to lead them on the Oldpark Road.
"I got into my car and drove up the Shankill Road along the Ballysillan Road. They followed me in a Wolseley 1800 car. I don’t know the colour of it because I am colour-blind. They had told me they wanted me to wait for them at the roundabout at Cliftonville Circus. I drove round and parked my car on the Oldpark Road, just above Alliance Avenue. They drove on down the Cliftonville Road in the 1800.
"I waited about for ten minutes or more before I heard an explosion. A short time later, the two men came up to my car on foot, one got in the front beside me and the other got in the back. They told me to drive on and I drove up the Oldpark Road towards the Ballysillan Road. I turned left towards the Crumlin Road and was told to stop at the top of the hill just before the Crumlin Road and the two men got out. I did a U-turn and cut up the Crumlin Road and out on to the Ligoniel Road before driving on down the Crumlin Road to my house.
“When the two men got into my car at Cliftonville Circus, they talked to each other about what happened. They said that when they went into the garage they had caught someone making a bomb. There was a fight and they said something about a gun.
“I got the impression that the gun had been produced by the men who were making the bomb. There was also some talk by the men that this garage was a bomb making factory and they were checking it out and had surprised the men who were in the garage and the two men disarmed them and had detonated the bomb.”
This man Crockett must have lived on Fantasy Island or had been watching too many James Bond films because I doubt James Bond could have disarmed and overpowered an IRA unit back in the '70s.
The police were unconvinced by Crockett’s claim that he did not know the true identities of the two people responsible for the murder of Anthony, Ronnie and Sean.
Their murders were cold-blooded and premeditated and ruthlessly executed. Intensive police enquiries had failed to reveal a possible motive for the crime, other than the fact the three men were victims of a sectarian murder and were executed because they were Roman Catholics.
The claim by Crockett in his statement that the garage was a bomb making factory and that Anthony, Ronnie and Sean had been surprised in the act of bomb making can clearly be discounted. Each of the victims were proven to have been men of the highest repute and nothing of a political subversive or unsavoury nature can be attributed to them.
Anthony was a 16-year-old on the cusp of a full and promising life. He was brutally murdered with his employers Ronnie and Sean.
As you can see from Crockett’s statement, not only did these men give Anthony, Ronnie and Sean horrific deaths, but he was trying to blacken their good names and characters. During police interviews, Crockett tried to lead police into believing that the three men had been bomb making.
My mother came face-to-face with Crockett in court. Anybody who knew my mother knew her as a polite and dignified lady. My mother got out of her seat in the courtroom with Anthony’s memorial card in her hand and walked right over to Crockett. After all, he was not a child, he was a man of 28-years-of-age and had two children of his own.
Anthony McGrady’s memory card which his mum waved in front of Crockett in court
Holding Anthony’s memorial card to her face, my mother told him: "You have a conscience and I hope that when your children are 16-years-of-age they don’t get the death that my child got." He didn’t seem to pay any attention to it and he just rolled his eyes.
The murders were vicious and full of hate. You wouldn’t do to an animal what they did to those three men.
In 1975, an anonymous letter was sent to my father, William. It was typed and had a Belfast postmark of 7.30pm on June 10, 1975 and was addressed to Mr William McGrady of 43 St James' Place, although we lived at number 14.
The letter read: "Mr McGrady, if you would like to know why your son Tony was assassinated, you should ask [named person’s] girlfriend who went to Dowling Street and got Crockett to murder him."
The Historical Enquiries Team (HET) would later say that there is no record of any action being taken in furtherance either of the intelligence reports or any reason as to why not.
"However, uncorroborated information for an anonymous source would not be sufficient grounds on which to instigate an arrest. In all likelihood, there was no prospect of obtaining evidence to support or corroborate the information and it simply remained on file.
"In many cases reviewed by the HET, there is often a considerable amount of such intelligence about incidents and individuals which can never be substantiated, it remained on file as information if additional evidence to corroborate it is uncovered it was highly valuable."
Myself and my brother Paul did engage with the HET.
1. Have you spoken to the original detectives who investigated the murder?
A. The detective who was in charge of the day-to-day running of the case does not wish to be contacted about old cases. Participation in reviews is completely voluntary on the part of ex-officers. Detective Chief Inspector Houston who was in overall charge has sadly passed away.
2. Do you have all the relevant information including murder files and statements?
A. Yes, there are copies of the original murder file and a comprehensive inquest file including maps and photographs.
3. Precisely what statements and evidence exist?
A. There were 48 witness statements.
4. Crockett was charged. Do you have all the information concerning his arrest and trial?
A. No.
5. In terms of the murder weapons, were they used in other attacks? If so, when, where and who was attacked if that is the case?
A. No, the Mauser pistol used in the attack was recovered in 1980 and following examination it was concluded that it had not been used in any other incident.
6. It was widely reported in the media that [named person] was a police agent. Was he ever a suspect and was he questioned about the murders?
A. The HET cannot comment on the status of anyone with regards to whether they were an informant or not. He was never a suspect in this case and was never questioned about the murders.
7. If arrests were made in connection with the murders, did any of those detained have connections to the UDR/RUC or British Army?
A. The only person arrested was William Crockett.
8. Have you considered speaking to the police in Belgium about Crockett’s death?
A. Yes, the HET have spoken to police in Belgium regarding Crockett’s death.
9. Had the RUC been in touch with police in Belgium at the time of his death?
A. No.
10. The day of the murders was August 25, 1973, also known as Black Saturday. This is the last march of the Orangemen and members of the Protestant loyal order in the North. This march would have required policing and security in the North Belfast area where Catholic and Protestant streets intertwine. Do any patrol and security records exist in relation to the security operation that day?
A. No, there are no records that exist in relation to security patrols that day.
Brothers John, Paul, Anthony RIP, Gerard and Liam
Crockett was released from prison on February 25, 1977. Around a year later, I was out one night at a club when this person came over to me. I can’t remember who it was but his words to me were: “Liam, do you know how to get a job in Harland and Wolf shipyard?” “Join the Orange Order,” I joked back! He told me that the b******d who murdered Anthony, Ronnie and Sean was working in the shipyard. How this man walked out of prison after playing his part in three horrific sectarian killings and got a job in Harland and Wolf is beyond me. It must be a case of do your bit for God and Ulster, join the UVF and when you come out of prison there is a job in the shipyard for you.
I heard nothing more about William Crockett until 1990 when I was driving my black taxi around by Smithfield when I noticed a young lad selling the early edition of the Belfast Telegraph. One of the headlines on the front caught my eye: ‘Former convict in death riddle – Shankill man’s body found after Belgium blaze’. For some reason, I had the gut feeling it was Anthony’s killer, Crockett, so I called the young lad over and bought a copy. I couldn’t believe it when I read it.
‘A former Belfast man jailed for his involvement in the murder of three Roman Catholics has been found dead in mysterious circumstances in a burnt-out hut in Belgium. Belgium police found the body of William Crockett (43), formerly of Mayo Street in the Shankill, in the docks area of Antwerp.'
A police spokesperson in Antwerp said it was suspected that Crockett may have been executed by an IRA commando unit. He added that an autopsy had shown no rope marks on the body and there were no signs of violence so a second post-mortem was ordered to establish how exactly he died.
‘Crockett was released from jail after serving seven years for his part in the loyalist murders of three Roman Catholics,' the report continued. 'They were brothers Sean (50) and Ronnie (55) McDonald and 16 year-old Anthony McGrady. The three died on August 25, 1973 after an explosion at a car repair workshop on the Cliftonville Road in North Belfast.
‘It was later established that the victims had been shot before the explosion.’
Well, I couldn’t get up the road fast enough to the family home. When I arrived, my mother was sitting watching TV. I said look at the headlines. She said to me, “Hell slap it up him. He deserves all he got. He got a clean death compared to the horrific deaths of Anthony and the two McDonald brothers. I will have a good sleep tonight knowing he is roasting in hell. God works in mysterious ways and he got punished for his evil crimes.” My mother never passed any more remarks, but I'm sure she had a good night's sleep.
His past had caught up with him on September 25, 1990 at 12.55am when a fire was reported at Baden Aniline Soda Factory (BASF) chemical plant in Antwerp. The plant is one of the largest chemical plants in Europe and the fire was confined to a number of wooden constructed huts used by the workers to have meals and drink breaks.
The Belgium fire service attended the scene and discovered that five of the huts were damaged and one had been completely destroyed by the fire. The badly burnt body of William Crockett was found behind the door of the hut that had been destroyed. The intensity of the fire had been such that Crockett’s body had been completely carbonised.
The cause of the fire was never determined. Enquiries established that Crockett was employed at the chemical plant together with a number of other British employees including some from the North. Crockett was living in the Flamingo Hotel with a number of other British workers from BASF in a town called Bergen of Zoom, across the border in the Netherlands, some 30km from Antwerp.
At 6.30pm on that evening of September 24, 1990, Crockett had asked a fellow employee to give him a lift back to the chemical plant on the pretext of having left some keys in the hut. He told his colleague that he would make his own way back to the hotel. It is evident that Crockett stayed in the hut that night and was found dead in the early hours of the following morning.
Belgium authorities at the time formed the belief that Crockett had been living in the hut, although it was not established for how long. The Dutch police also assisted with the HET enquiry and explained that on May 23, 1990, Crockett presented himself to a police station in a small town called Krabbendijke which is a 15-minute drive from Bergen of Zoom and on a direct rail link.
Crockett told police he was in fear of his life as he had been a member of a paramilitary organisation in Northern Ireland called the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) who were the enemies of the Provisional IRA. Crockett said that he feared word of his whereabouts would be passed back to the Provisional IRA through other Northern Irish workers at the chemical plant.
The police records do not indicate whether he disclosed his convictions in relation to the murders of Anthony, Ronnie and Sean. Crockett told police that he was afraid to go back to the Flamingo Hotel.
Although the police recorded the visit from Crockett, it would appear that no further enquiries were carried out at that time. Dutch police records do not show what advice if any Crockett was given.
Here is this devious vermin Crockett walking into a Belgium police station claiming to have been a member of the UVF, whilst at Anthony’s inquest trying to make out he was the lead car under duress which police back in Belfast did not believe. This clearly shows that Crockett was a member of the UVF and although the UVF didn’t claim they were responsible for the shooting and explosion, this proves they were. This also shows Crockett played an active role in the murders of Anthony, Ronnie and Sean.
Crockett got a clean death compared to the very cruel and, vicious and full of hate deaths that Anthony, Ronnie and Sean got. To know Crockett was squirming like a cornered rat looking over his shoulder and having sleepless nights, his past had caught up with him. Just maybe when he was having sleepless nights, the image of my mother Anna holding Anthony’s memorial card and questioning his conscience was one of the last images he saw before departing from this earth.
If I could have given William Crockett a piece of advice in 1990, I would have said, William, don’t play with fire because you will get burnt. The world is a better place without the likes of you murdering innocent Roman Catholics because of their faith.
A burning end to a mother’s untold troubled story of family heartbreak and loss. It makes me realise how proud I was of my parents from my mother corresponding with a British MP on behalf of the prisoners' treatment on hunger strike in 1972 to making her way home from Omeath with us four children after receiving the tragic news of Anthony’s horrific death.
To my father, William, how brave he was to storm out after a British raiding party into the lion’s den and confronting whoever was in charge of sending them out due to the tormenting, torturing and taunting of our family about Anthony’s death.
And finally our mother for confronting William Crockett with Anthony’s memorial card in her hand. That took some courage and she did it in a polite and dignified way.
May my parents be resting in peace and re-united with Anthony in heaven.
The End.
