EXCLUSIVE | 

Sick new UVF memorial honouring notorious Shankill Butchers gang causes outrage

Leader Lenny Murphy was assassinated by the IRA in a shooting which was set up with the help of loyalists who knew he was out of control

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A plaque honouring members of the notorious Shankill Butchers gang has caused outrage.

A mural on Glenwood Street off the Shankill Road commemorating UVF dead above a field of poppies now includes a tribute to the notorious killers who terrorised Belfast.

Among a list of dead UVF men it includes Lenny Murphy, his brother John Murphy, Robert ‘Basher’ Bates and John Townsley.

They were key members of the gang which held Belfast in terror for seven years from 1975. They were notorious for slashing the necks of their victims, often after hours of torture.

Their killings were so gruesome they caused fear and revulsion in a city already blighted by the violence of the Troubles.

The gang was responsible for at least 23 murders, usually targeting Catholics, however eight of their victims were Protestants.

Lenny Murphy was personally responsible for killing a young Protestant man with learning difficulties, a part-time UDR soldier and a former UVF prisoner. He’s also thought to have poisoned his co-accused in prison at just 21 to get off a murder charge.

The ruthless killer was murdered by the IRA in November 1982 in a shooting which was set up with the help of loyalists who knew Murphy was out of control.

He was later given a hero’s send-off but leaders within the UVF at the time regarded him as a loose cannon.

The appearance of his name – along with the other gang members – on the marble memorial has caused anger locally. It declares ‘we will remember them’.

“He was a disgrace to loyalism,” says a local man.

“Lenny Murphy was a serial killer, and his brother John wasn’t much better. They were psychopaths who killed whoever they liked using the name of the UVF.

“Why anyone has decided to honour them now is beyond me, next to a plaque to war dead.”

The memorial is just a street away from where the final victim of the gang was dumped in 1982, in Brookmount Street, where Lenny Murphy lived.

He came up with the gang’s calling card of slashing victims’ throats, often after mutilating them with hatchets. As their terrifying reputation grew, they would glory in telling victims they were in the clutches of the Shankill Butchers.

The horror of their crimes was captured in a best-selling book by journalist Martin Dillon who described Murphy as a serial killer using a paramilitary banner.

When Murphy was jailed for firearms offences in 1976 after trying to murder a Catholic woman in a drive-by shooting, he ordered one of his deputies, William Moore, to continue the cut-throat killings. Moore and Murphy’s brother John proved to be as bloodthirsty as their jailed leader.

The only person to survive their deranged violence was Gerard McLaverty, who was slashed and left for dead in 1977.

His evidence eventually led to the arrest and conviction of 11 men for 19 murders. However, when Murphy was released, he returned to killing within 24 hours. He was gunned down by the IRA four months later.

His brother John died in a car accident on the Grosvenor Road in 1998. William Moore died at home in Mount Vernon in 2009.

Robert ‘Basher’ Bates, who claimed he had become a committed Christian in prison, was shot dead in 1997 by the son of a UDA member he’d killed 20 years earlier.

Former gang member Eddie McIlwaine, who served time for kidnapping, assault, possessing weapons and intent to endanger life, was pictured last month erecting UVF flags in Glenwood Street, before taking part in the Orange Order Whiterock parade the next day.

“These men were as much of a danger to loyalists as they were to anyone else,” says the local.

“They’re being remembered a stone’s throw away from where Lenny Murphy’s last victim was dumped.

“Call them what you like but they weren’t heroes.”

Yesterday, Jude Whyte, whose mother was murdered on the doorstep of her south Belfast home by the UVF, said he was appalled to hear the Shankill Butchers had been honoured.

He said: “Every family has the right to remember their dead, but it is absolutely outrageous that the Shankill Butchers gang are being remembered in this way.

“We all know that Lenny Murphy killed almost as many Protestants as he did Catholics.

“But what’s actually happening here – and this argument is going to develop in the near future – if we commemorate the Shankill Butchers, do we also commemorate IRA volunteers in south Armagh? This is the big debate that’s still to come here.

“People should always chose their words carefully, but glorification of the Shankill Butchers is a shameful thing.

“I suppose the fact that it is being erected within a loyalist working-class district keeps the offence out of public view, unless you want to go to see it.

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“But victims like me are just appalled that these monsters are being remembered,” he said.

Jude Whyte’s mum Margaret – a 52-year-old mother of eight and a part-time taxi driver – died along with RUC constable Michael Dawson when a UVF bomb exploded outside her home on University Street in 1984. The officer had called to the house in response to a telephone call from Mrs Whyte, who had spotted a suspicious looking bag on her windowsill around 2am.

And Jude Whyte revealed the UVF man who murdered his mother is commemorated on a loyalist mural a short distance away from the double murder scene.

Mr Whyte said: “The man who murdered my mum is eulogised on a wall in nearby Donegall Pass. He was injured in the explosion and he’s up there on the wall with other UVF volunteers.”

He added: “But honouring the Shankill Butchers really stretches the imagination to its limits.”