Loyalist former prisoner group development

The lack of a tradition of imprisonment in the Loyalist community was readily apparent when its first high-profile representative, Gusty Spence, was sentenced in 1966. He did have support among the Shankill Road working class but elsewhere there was disapproval. For example, as Spence was a member of the local Orange Order, his lodge continued to recognise him by stopping outside Crumlin Road gaol during the 12th July parades. The Grand Lodge ordered Spence’s expulsion and when it refused, his Prince Albert Temperance lodge was threatened with the removal of its warrant (Garland, 2001). Again, there was no loose network of welfare groups and prisoners depended on friends and family to meet their needs. As the ‘Troubles’ intensified, however, and more UVF members were convicted and sentenced, welfare groups associated with the organisation were formed.

The first such was the ‘Orange Cross’, replicating the Republican Green Cross. This group performed a similar function for UVF prisoners by organising collections and ‘supplementing parcels destined for the prisoners with basic necessities like soap, a comb, hair cream, face flannel and shaving soap’ (Garland, 2001: 129-130). A Loyalist former prisoner sums it up:

We had no culture or history of prisoners, we started from scratch trying to work out systems…When Gusty Spence went to prison, that was the first time that Loyalists went outside the law. In that era that was the first time a welfare system the “Orange Cross” was formed. Among working class areas we were the same as IRA prisoners but once you went outside of those areas you’d no support…within the general Unionist population we were outcasts (Loyalist: Workshop, 24th June 2004).

There was a difference, too, for those from a rural background:

Maybe in places like the Shankill, were there’s a high concentration of Loyalist prisoners, the working class people supported ex- prisoners, but you go to a place, portrayed as the “bastion of Unionism”…Portadown, within the Loyalist and Unionist community there, is outright hostility to our very existence. Unionism in Portadown has manifested itself in many extreme forms

politically, but they still do not have much time for people who do not have the cloak of legitimacy around them…that in many ways has curtailed the development of Loyalist ex-prisoner groups (Loyalist: Workshop, 24th June 2004).

As the number of Loyalists imprisoned began to increase in the early 1970s, particularly with the introduction of internment, the UVF established the Loyalist Prisoners Welfare Association (LPWA). This was:

a loose group whose main focus was transport, family welfare, prisoners’ rights, street protests, hoax bombs, blocking roads…replicating the Black Taxis to generate funds for families (Loyalist: Workshop, 24th June 2004).

The Orange Cross was subsumed by the LPWA, which was the only welfare group in existence for UVF prisoners and former prisoners until as late as 1995. The LPWA functioned as part of a movement. It had close ties to the UVF outside and to its prisoners inside who appointed a welfare officer to liaise with the LPWA. This close connection allowed the mobilisation of support for protests and provided extra help when needed:

It was a movement. People underestimated the size of the operation that organised parcels at Christmas, transport and things like that (Loyalist: Focus Group, 1st December 2004).

The LPWA also organised protests outside prison to highlight the conditions of prisoners inside. One of the first was when Republican and Loyalist prisoners in Long Kesh stopped taking visits for 14 weeks in protest at restrictions put in place after a PIRA prisoner escaped during a visit. The LPWA was also instrumental in the discussions around the idea of a downtown centre’ as one former prisoner recalls:

The concept of the “downtown centre” came from inside. Gusty was involved and the NIO bought into it…Trying to bring all the paramilitary groups in from the cold…the LPWA did the negotiating…the Republicans blocked it (Loyalist: Focus Group, 1st December 2004).

Loyalists were involved in ongoing protests throughout the late 1970s and early 1980s particularly in relation to the campaign for Special Category Status in the Maze and the campaign for segregation in Crumlin Road (Crawford, 1999). As with Republicanism, the next main issue for the movement centred on the Life Sentence Review Board introduced in 1983. Members of the LPWA and parents of SOSPs and life sentence prisoners formed the ‘Justice for Lifers’ campaign in 1985 (Justice for Lifers 1985; Loyalist: Focus Group, 1st December 2004). Eddie Kinner, a former UVF SOSP explains:

The first campaign was aimed at SOSPs. All the parents got together to push the issue. That started in and around 1983-84. The first indeterminate sentence prisoners to be released were Gusty [Spence] and two Republicans. The pressure then grew about SOSPs. What

kicked off the genuine acknowledgement of having to release prisoners was the attempted escape of Benny Redfern and Ned Pollock. Benny Redfern got crushed to death in a bin lorry. The desperation of that – there was a recognition that at some stage they [the prison authorities] were going to have to do something especially if people were going to go to that extent to try and escape (Interview, 8th December 2004).

The idea that indeterminate sentenced prisoners had to take part in interviews and answer particular questions in order to be considered for release was seen by some as reinforcing the Government’s policy of criminalisation. It caused a split within the UVF compound in Long Kesh with around 15 indeterminate sentenced prisoners (out of around 90) refusing to take part in the process. Eddie Kinner was one of the 15:

As far as I was concerned it was a charade. No one had been released and I couldn’t justify taking part. There was ground still to be won. There was still scope to negotiate what kind of release procedure you would be going through. Once people began to take part then they accepted the terms and conditions. Once people started moving out through the “working out scheme”, the thing was in place and you were only cutting off your nose to spite your face. I had a decision to make – get another three-year knock back or bite the bullet and go through the process. I was harming no one but myself (Interview, 8th December 2004).

Kinner, like many others eventually went through the process. The first two Loyalist SOSPs were released in 1988 along with the first Christmas parole for indeterminate sentenced prisoners. This marked the beginning of releases of those serving prolonged sentences, many Loyalists believing that this was the catalyst for the development of former prisoner support groups during the 1990s:

As the first life sentence prisoners began to be released around ’88- ’89, it was then that it dawned on people the problems that were there (Loyalist: Focus Group, 1st December 2004).