6 News
Special report
Film reopens
files on four
missing boys
and the link to
loyalist pastor
Documentary shines light on Alan Campbell and
the children who set off for school in 60s and 70s
and never came home. By Andrew Madden
A CONTROVERSIAL loyalist pas-
tor has been linked to the disap-
pearance of four Belfast school-
boys and the murder of another
in the late 1960s and mid-70s.
The link between Alan Camp-
bell — who died in 2017 aged 67
— and the cases is made in a new
documentary, Lost Boys: Belfast’s
Missing Children, which pre-
mieres on September 28.
The earliest disappearanc-
es featured are those of 11-year-
old David Leckey and Jonathan
Aven (14), both from east Belfast,
who vanished after leaving their
homes for school on September
25, 1969.
Fast forward to September
1973, when 10-year-old east Bel-
fast schoolboy Brian McDermott
disappeared. He was last seen
alive in Ormeau Park. A week lat-
er his mutilated remains were
recovered from a hessian sack
pulled from the Lagan.
Both his legs and one of his
arms had been cut off, while his
torso was badly burned.
The following year Thomas
Spence (11) and his best friend,
13-year-old John Rodgers, van-
ished after leaving their west
Belfast homes to catch a bus to
their special school in the north
of the city.
They were last seen at their
bus stop on the Falls Road on the
morning of November 26, 1974.
They never made it to school.
The boys’ disappearance was
being investigated by writer Lyra
McKee for a book, The Lost Boys,
before she was killed in 2019.
In the documentary, crimi- ‘He claims
nologist Robert Giles suggests a
link between the disappearanc-
concerns
es of Leckey, Aven, Rodgers and about
Spence, given their closeness in Kincora
age and the similar circumstanc-
es in which they vanished.
were
Forensic psychologist Profes- ignored’
Saturday September 23 2023
John McKeague
Joseph Mains
Eric Witchell
sor David Canters tells the doc-
umentary that for the four dis-
appearances and a murder to all
take place in the same small city,
in just five years and featuring
boys close in age, is a matter of
great interest.
Giles notes that, following Bri-
an McDermott’s murder, media
reports said the police files on
the disappearances of Leckey
and Aven were reopened.
The documentary also fea-
tures interviews with Darren
Brown, a friend of the Leckey
family. He notes that David Leck-
ey went to Oakleigh High School
on the Ravenhill Road.
He says that many residents of
Kincora Boys’ Home also attend- Peter Bone
ed Oakleigh. Kincora was also
within walking distance of where Morris Fraser
Leckey and Aven lived. Organ-
ised child sex abuse took place at
Kincora in the 1970s. When the
story broke in the 1980s it caused
a major scandal.
There were claims of an at-
tempted cover-up because there
was a paedophile ring with links known in the Orange Order. The McGrath, Semple and Mains’ Scandal: It was established that the ten-
to the intelligence services op- documentary features an inter- convictions in 1981 due to the The alleged ant of the flat was Ken Larmour,
erating from the home, and evi- view with Brian Gemmell, an various allegations being made paedophile who was employed as a clerk at
dence that abuse was carried out Army intelligence officer in the about a cover up and others be- network Belfast Magistrates court at the
by “powerful” people, including 1970s. ing involved in the abuse. centred time.
politicians, was being used to He says he made his superi- In 1982 then RUC Detective around The documentary names Lar-
blackmail them. ors aware of what was going on Chief Superintendent George Kincora boys mour, along with the late loy-
In 1981 three Kincora staff at Kincora in 1975 but his con- Caskey was asked to head up a home alist paramilitary leader John
members, William McGrath, cerns were ignored because, as team to make further enquiries McKeague, as being members of
Raymond Semple and Joseph a source told him at the time, into Kincora. A report relating to a paedophile network. McGrath,
Mains, were jailed for various McGrath was working for one these investigations is covered in Campbell, Semple and others are
child sex offences. of the intelligence agencies. Mr the documentary. also named as members of this
The documentary references Gemmell says he is “absolutely One section details an allega- group.
a news report from 1980 which certain” the intelligence services tion against Campbell that he Campbell was later charged
mentions that RUC detectives were aware of the Kincora abuse picked up a schoolboy, who was over the November 1970 incident,
investigating the sex abuse at for years, but did nothing. a resident in Bawnmore Boys’ but not convicted. The documen-
Kincora were also examining In the documentary, Giles Home in Newtownabbey, where tary includes claims he was giv-
the files on the Aven and Leckey notes that Alan Campbell was abuse also took place, on a bus en an alibi by a friend, which was
disappearances. a “regular visitor” at McGrath’s in November 1970. He alleged- later retracted when the friend
William McGrath who head- home, according to official po- ly took the boy to a flat in Bel- learned what the alibi was for.
ed up a shadowy paramilitary lice documents. fast, sexually assaulted him and Giles says the connection to
group called Tara, was involved Further police investigations warned him afterwards: “I’ll stick the disappearances of the boys
in unionist politics and was well into Kincora continued after a knife in you if you tell anybody.” and Campbell, through McGrath
Saturday September 23 2023
William McGrath
Ken Larmour
and Kincora, is strengthened as
the November 1970 incident al-
legedly began with a boy being
picked up by Campbell on a bus,
and Spence and Rodgers were
last seen at a bus stop.
The allegation that Campbell
was prepared to use violence to
cover up an indecent assault is
also a connection to the disap-
pearances, and to the Brian Mc-
Dermott murder, Giles says.
“Police would have been aware
of the claims against Alan Camp-
bell when Brian McDermott was
found murdered,” director Des
Henderson, says.
“They would also have been
aware of individuals in the wider
paedophile ring, to which he was
linked. But yet, to the best of our
knowledge, none of these men
were ever questioned, or named
Alan Campbell
Robert Elder
as persons of interest.”
The documentary also talks
about a government memo cov-
ering a meeting in 1982 between
the NI Secretary of State and the
Lord Chancellor being briefed by
the Attorney General.
The memo states that the RUC
were investigating three aspects
of the Kincora affair, according
to the Attorney General, includ-
ing that a man may have with-
held information about the mur-
der of Brian McDermott.
This information conflicted
with what the RUC previously
told ministers and officials, the
memo states, and this left the
government in an “embarrassing
and exposed position”. The man
referred to was Alan Campbell.
This memo was kept top secret
at the time and only released into
Raymond Semple
the public domain decades later.
A former Army officer also
says in the documentary that
Campbell “merited very close
examination” regarding the dis-
appearances of the four boys and
the McDermott murder, and he
still feels aggrieved that this did
not happen when the incidents
took place.
Journalist Chris Moore also
reveals a document in the foot-
age that was circulated among
loyalists in the 80s. “Campbell,
McGrath and McKeague were all
homosexual perverts who acted
as agents for British Intelligence
in the late 60s and early 70s.”
Lost Boys: Belfast’s Missing Chil-
dren world premiere in partnership
with Docs Ireland, Odeon Cinema,
Belfast, Thursday, 7pm
First picture of Kincora
beast Raymond Semple
By Andrew Madden
THIS is the first published photograph
of Kincora paedophile Raymond Sem-
ple — more than 40 years after he was
convicted of serious child sex offences.
It is featured in the documentary Lost
Boys: Belfast’s Missing Children docu-
mentary exploring the disappearances
of four Belfast schoolboys and the mur-
der of another dating back to 1969.
Semple and fellow Kincora staff
members William McGrath and Joseph
Mains were jailed in 1981 after being
convicted of sex offences at Kincora.
Born in January 1922, Semple had
two stints working at the notorious boys
home, from 1964 to 1966 and from 1969
until he was suspended in 1980 when
the abuse came to light.
At the time of his suspension he was
the second most senior staff member
at Kincora. He pleaded guilty on the
first day of his trial to four offences and
was jailed for five years. Mains was sen-
tenced to six years and McGrath was
sentenced to four. Semple was released
from prison in 1984.
According to papers from the North-
Who was Alan Campbell?
PASTOR Alan Campbell was born into a
staunchly Presbyterian home in a Catho-
lic area in Belfast in August 1949.
According to an online biography of
Campbell, his grandmother was a “very
firm adherent of the doctrine of British
Israelism, and thus he was exposed to
this teaching from a very early age”.
Gail Walker British Israelism is based on the belief
Compelling that people in Britain are direct descend-
ants of the Ten Lost Tribes of Israel.
film shows Despite being exposed to these teach-
why we ings as a young child, Campbell did not
need truth actually convert to Christianity in ear-
nest until September 1965, after hearing
and justice Reverend Ian Paisley preach.
22 He served for a time as head of reli-
News 7
ern Ireland Historical Institutional
Abuse Inquiry, which released its report
in January 2017, little is known about
Semple’s life.
It notes that his friendship with Jo-
seph Mains facilitated his employment
at Kincora.
“Unlike his fellow convicted Kinco-
ra staff members, Raymond Semple
openly admitted to police that he was
a homosexual. This was confirmed in a
medical examination,” one HIA docu-
ment reads.
“Unlike his fellow Kincora convict-
ed staff members, prior to the RUC in-
vestigation in 1980, there were no com-
plaints or allegations to police or social
services, made against Semple by Kin-
cora residents.
“Raymond Semple’s sentence of five
years’ imprisonment was reflective of
his position as second-in-charge within
the Hostel, as opposed to the number of
charges and victims, particularly when
compared with William McGrath’s case.
“There is no evidence that Semple
committed sexual abuse on any other
Kincora resident, other than the two he
was convicted of abusing.”
gion at Newtownabbey Community
High School. During his tenure he sold
tapes lamenting the end of South Afri-
ca’s apartheid regime. He also criticised
DUP and Ulster Unionist politicians for
meeting Nelson Mandela.
Campbell had his own church, Open
Bible Ministries, which closed in 2013
following claims that funds were being
appropriated by an associate of Camp-
bell who had a “seedy background”. The
pastor denied this at the time.
He frequently caused controversy for
his extreme anti-Catholic views, which
in later life he spread on the internet.
Campbell died suddenly in hospital at
the age of 67 in 2017.