Inside the risky mission of MI5 spy who posed as a hotel inspector and used holidays and football to infiltrate New IRA

TO his neighbours in North Belfast, Dennis McFadden was a friendly hotel inspector and family man who loved nothing more than a drink with pals at his modest bungalow.

But for almost 20 years the former policeman lived a double life, working as an MI5 agent and infiltrating IRA splinter groups suspected of bomb attacks, punishment beatings and the 2019 murder of journalist Lyra McKee.

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For almost 20 years the former policeman lived a double life, working as an MI5 agent and infiltrating IRA splinter groups[/caption]

Glaswegian Dennis, 54 — who lived in a quiet cul-de-sac in the suburb of Glengormley with his wife and son — splashed out on Celtic football tickets and booze-fuelled parties for high-ranking members of the New IRA.

He and wife Christine, 38, even took three foreign holidays with the group’s suspected leader Kevin Murphy, paying for flights and accommodation.

He provided safe houses for suspected terrorists, which were then bugged, and he hired remote Airbnb properties where he arranged high-level meetings among the top ranks of the terror group.

He then secretly recorded their conversations, keeping himself off the tape by nipping out for trivial items such as tea bags during crucial discussions.

When the meetings ended, he would volunteer to clear up, collecting the glasses and ashtrays to be swabbed for prints and DNA evidence.

THRILLER PLOT

By 2016 Dennis was so trusted that he was put on the national executive of Saoradh, the fledgling political wing of the New IRA.

But in August 2020, days before the arrest of nine people suspected of being the terror group’s military council, Dennis and his family vanished, his mission accomplished.

Now the results of his audacious assignment, codenamed Operation Arbacia, have emerged in the pre-trial hearings of eight men and two women accused of terrorism offences.

Evidence gathered by the MI5 agent, including 470 hours of covertly recorded video and audio, forms the backbone of the case, which can be reported in full because terror-related trials in the province are heard without a jury.

And the details of his daring deception read like the plot of a John le Carré thriller.

Dennis, who is thought to have grown up in the Gorbals area of Glasgow, moved to Northern Ireland in the years following the 1998 Good Friday Agreement, when Republican Provisionals opposed to peace formed the Real IRA and Continuity IRA.

After joining Republican party Sinn Fein, Dennis — who had variously described himself as a bar owner, pilot, NHS worker and a former soldier — would frequently attend meetings with leader Gerry Adams.

But many were suspicious of his motives from day one, and former Sinn Fein councillor Monica Digney said she raised concerns at the party’s HQ in Sevastopol Street, off the Falls Road, soon after he arrived.

She said in 2021: “He appeared out of nowhere and claimed to be an airline pilot.

“But people who worked for the same airline he claimed to work for had never heard of him.

“His story just didn’t add up. Then he just vanished as quickly as he had appeared.

“Several suspicious things happened that made us really, really concerned.

“We went to Sevastopol Street several times, but each time we were ignored.

“We were made to feel as if we were almost picking on him, looking for a reason.

“A blind man on a galloping horse could see what was happening.”

Dennis formed a close friendship with former IRA prisoner Tony Catney, which helped him to secure the trust of the hardline groups.

As the groups sought to forge international links with other banned organisations, Dennis was among a small number of dissidents who attended a conference in Brussels on Palestinian detainees and also arranged travel for leading dissidents to a political conference in Beirut.

After moving between several addresses, and a relationship with a woman in Carrickfergus, Dennis met therapist Christine while working part-time as a bouncer at gay bar The Parliament, in Belfast city centre, and they moved in together.

He used his fake hotel inspector job to excuse extended absences, allowing secret meetings with his MI5 spymasters.

An avid Celtic supporter, Dennis often wooed his Republican targets with football tickets, flights to Scotland and overnight stays.

On three occasions he took 50-year-old Murphy, thought to be a senior figure in the New IRA, on holiday to Spain, paying for flights and the villa for Murphy and his wife.

While his acts of generosity may well have been funded by MI5, this has not been confirmed, but it is known that in the past five years the Police Service of Northern Ireland has handed out £1.6million to informants.

By 2013 the breakaway terror groups had reformed under the banner of the New IRA and, three years later, when Saoradh was formed, Dennis was appointed to the national executive and put in charge of finance and resources.

While the New IRA continued to be linked to bomb plots, punishment beatings and even murders of local gangsters and drug dealers, public outrage over the killing of 29-year-old journalist Lyra McKee, shot dead by a New IRA gunman during rioting in the Creggan area in April 2019, stepped up Dennis’s mission to bring down the group.

He and Christine moved into the unassuming five-bedroom bungalow in Glengormley, where their only son could often be seen riding his bicycle.

Neighbours told how Dennis was “over-pleasant, a bit too friendly. He was always asking you round for a drink”.

Plenty of his New IRA buddies accepted his invitation, with Dennis hosting large gatherings where tongues were loosened as booze flowed.

When lockdown threatened his parties, he had a bar built in the garden, with patio heaters, umbrellas and seating.

Kegs of Guinness, bottles of wine and gin were ordered from a local bar to fuel the drinking sessions into the early hours and it is at this al fresco bar where much of the secret surveillance footage was taken.

In February and July 2020 he also hired two larger Airbnb properties in County Tyrone, where he hosted meetings of the so-called “army council” of the New IRA.

Delegates are said to have introduced themselves by rank, with Murphy allegedly dubbing himself “chief of staff”.

The recordings make chilling listening as the group discuss seeking funding from the Russians and alliances with the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, as well as buying Semtex explosive, rocket launchers and rifles from Colombia in South America.

Dennis — dubbed “the man who was always there but was never really there” — is rarely heard on the tapes, having made his various excuses to leave the room.

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Journalist Lyra McKee was shot dead by a Real IRA gunman during rioting in the Creggan area in April 2019[/caption]

PA:Press Association

© Photopress Belfast © All moral and intellectual rights retained

Dennis lived in a modest bungalow in Glengormley[/caption]

Shortly after the final meeting, in July 2020, the McFaddens disappeared without trace.

The Belfast bungalow was searched and stripped by two men who drove up in a black SUV with blacked-out windows, before a removal van took the remaining furniture a few days later.

The bungalow remains abandoned — with blinds drawn and garden over-grown.

It has since emerged that Dennis foiled a plot to murder prominent Loyalist Johnny “Mad Dog” Adair, who fled Belfast for Ayrshire.

Information from Dennis led to Republican plotters Antoin Duffy, Martin Hughes and Paul Sands being jailed in Scotland in 2015.

© Photopress Belfast © All moral and intellectual rights retained

A warning sign outside his family home[/caption]

Now it is possible that his deep cover mission could be used to secure further convictions.

The seven men and two women about to stand trial, along with a Palestinian activist who was arrested at Heathrow as part of the same operation, deny all the charges against them, which include directing terrorism, preparation of terrorist acts and membership of a proscribed organisation.

Although Dennis’s evidence is sure to prove crucial in the trial, he is now in hiding and Saoradh claims he tried to get his family into witness protection with him — but they refused and disowned him.

Saoradh added: “It is the opinion of his immediate family that McFadden cares for no one but himself and the personal profit resulting from his actions.”

Lyra McKee’s killer has never been convicted, although Londonderry man Niall Sheerin, who admitted storing the gun used in the murder, was jailed for seven years in September.

But security chiefs believe Dennis’s daring undercover mission has done irreparable damage to the New IRA, the most dangerous terrorist group still operational in Northern Ireland — which may yet save more lives.