Loyalist Clifford McKeown, who murdered Catholic taximan Michael McGoldrick nearly three decades ago, was a Special Branch agent for most of his time as a paramilitary, it’s been reported.
UTV reported on Tuesday that “several well-placed sources with in-depth knowledge of the loyalist’s activities” confirmed this to the broadcaster, and that McKeown, who died last week, was behind at least 10 other murders.
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Michael McGoldrick (31) was murdered in July 1996 after loyalists ordered a taxi from a firm in Lurgan and lured the driver to his death on a remote country road.
Clifford McKeown (65), who was convicted of the sectarian killing in 2003 following a confession made to a journalist while in prison, died last Tuesday.
‘’I was robbed of a father.”
Michael’s wife Sadie was six months pregnant with their son Andrew at the time.
Their daughter Emma was only seven.
Both spoke for the first time about their father’s death to UTV News.
“I was my dad’s shadow, we were very close. I think it was also strange [that] I don’t remember that… I don’t have that in my brain anymore, it has also been taken,” said Emma.
Andrew added: ‘’I was robbed of a father. I was robbed of a relationship with my father. Simple things like watching the football, doing normal stuff that fathers and sons do.”
Michael McGoldrick
McKeown died just months after being released from prison. He was the longest serving paramilitary prisoner in Northern Ireland.
It is understood the man who became the first loyalist ‘supergrass’ in the early 1980s had been ill for some time and was freed from prison on compassionate grounds last summer.
Mr McGoldrick’s murder took place at the height of the Drumcree crisis which saw Orange marches prevented from passing along Portadown’s Garvaghy Road.
The UVF perpetrator claimed he carried out the chilling act as a birthday present to his then paramilitary boss, Billy Wright.
Wright was expelled from the terror gang as a result and formed his own savage militia, the Loyalist Volunteer Force (LVF).
According to McKeown’s death notice, he died peacefully in hospital.