SAS killings marked with cake

A member of a British military anti-terrorist unit has told how killing republican paramilitaries would be celebrated with a drinking session and a commemorative cake.

The revelation is among a number of disclosures in Brits, the second programme in a BBC 2 series by journalist Peter Taylor about British counter-terrorist activities in Northern Ireland.

Entitled "Shoot to kill", the programme examines allegations that British security forces and the Royal Ulster Constabulary killed republican paramilitaries rather than arrest them.

Accusations that police officers and members of the now renamed Ulster Defence Regiment colluded with loyalist paramilitaries in assassination attempts against former nationalist MP, Bernadette McAlliskey (Devlin), are also examined.

The cake would bear the name of the victim and "RIP"

"Anna", a member of the army's 14 Intelligence Company, known as the DET, said a "shoot to kill" policy was not operated by the army.

But she said the DET and the SAS would celebrate the killing of a republican paramilitary.

"We went to the bar, we drank quite a lot. The cook made us a cake.

"After a shooting occurred, if a terrorist was killed there was a cake made with their name on it, part of the celebration."

She admitted the practice was "macabre" but pointed out that IRA members could be "highly public about their celebrations" if they killed a member of the security forces.

"The saying is: live by the sword and die by the sword."

The programme traces the involvement of the SAS since their official deployment in Northern Ireland during the 1970s.

Previously the force had been in the province in an advisory capacity to regular soldiers.

Allegations of security force collusion with loyalist paramilitaries

The programme raises questions about the possibility of SAS collusion in the attempted assassination by loyalist paramilitaries of the former MP and hunger strike campaigner, Bernadette McAlliskey.

Ms McAlliskey and her husband Michael were shot at breakfast time in their home, an isolated farmhouse near Dungannon, County Tyrone. At the time of the attack, the McAlliskey home was under covert surveillance by the SAS.

In an interview for Brits, a paratrooper who came on the scene to give the victims first aid cast doubt on the original version of events released by the army.

He asked the SAS why they had failed to stop the loyalist gunmen on their way in to the McAlliskey home.

"At which there was a pause and then he said 'we must have been looking the other way' which did for me," he said.

Peter Taylor: Maker of "Brits", "Loyalists" and "Provos"

The programme maker also speaks with Bernadette McAlliskey about the attempt on her life as well as talking with one of the UFF team who shot her and her husband.

"The question must be asked then, where were they when these people were breaking in the door," said Ms McAlliskey in a reference to the failure of the SAS to intervene before the shooting.

The level of official knowledge of and sanction for a "shoot to kill" policy is also raised with former Attorney General and Northern Ireland Secretary, Sir Patrick Mayhew.

"You don't shoot to tickle. You don't shoot to miss. You do shoot to kill.

"But it's the circumstances in which you shoot that ought to be the subject of the inquiry," he said.

Sir Patrick described as "nonsense" a suggestion that "shoot to kill" was "sort of somehow self-evidently wicked is absolutely wrong".

The programme delves into the investigation of the shoot to kill allegations led by former Greater Manchester Deputy Chief Constable, John Stalker.

He was replaced as he investigated the whereabouts of a tape which secretly recorded an incident in which a Catholic teenager was shot dead at a hayshed.

The tape might have cleared up controversy over whether a warning was shouted before a SAS unit, who had kept the hayshed under surveillance, opened fire killing Michael Tighe and wounding Martin McCauley.

The programme will be broadcast on BBC 2 at 2130 BST on Wednesday, 24 May.