Albert Walker "Ginger" Baker (born c. 1951) is an Ulster loyalist who was convicted of four murders carried out by the Ulster Defence Association (UDA), of which he was a leading member. He turned himself in to the police in 1973 after throwing a hand grenade into a bus transporting Catholic workmen in East Belfast, Northern Ireland, which killed one man. He admitted to this killing and those of three other Catholics the previous year, as well as 11 armed robberies. He was sentenced to 25 years imprisonment for the four murders.
Baker claimed he was a British intelligence agent and member of the Military Reconnaissance Force (MRF). He gave evidence against his former UDA associates, including Ned McCreery, in the murder trial of the "romper room" torture and killing of James McCartan on 3 October 1972. This made him Northern Ireland's first loyalist supergrass. Although McCreery had assisted in the torture of McCartan, Baker had actually carried out the shooting. Baker's testimony, however, proved inconsistent and was given with the aim of minimising his own role in the killing, so the judge dropped the charges against McCreery and the others. McCreery was also involved in the grenade attack.
Baker contacted the Stevens Inquiry team in 1989 and alleged that the security forces assisted in the majority of loyalist paramilitary attacks in the 1970s by providing the UDA and Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF) with the necessary intelligence to facilitate them. He confirmed that loyalist paramilitaries had perpetrated the 1974 Dublin and Monaghan bombings and stated that "half the assassinations in Northern Ireland in the early 1970s would not have been committed without RUC backing"."Family push for inquiry into loyalist collusion". Irish News. Maeve Connolly. 21 February 2005. Retrieved 15 January 2012 Whilst in prison, he was interviewed by Labour MP Ken Livingstone; an edited transcript of their meeting appears in his book Livingstone's Labour.
British Army Albert Wallace Baker, known as "Ginger" after the drummer in the British rock group Cream, was born into a Protestant family in East Belfast, Northern Ireland. In 1970, at the age of 19, he joined the 2nd Battalion of the British Army's Royal Irish Rangers (R Irish) regiment.Houses of the Oireachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights Interim Report on the Report of the Independent Commission of Inquiry into the Dublin Bombings of 1972 and 1973, November 2004. p.79 (The Barron Report 2004) Retrieved 19 January 2012 He trained with the US Special Forces and was a member of the Special Air Service's (SAS) 22nd Regiment. He served briefly in Oman, where he was involved in suppressing the Dhofar Rebellion.Dillon, The Trigger Men, p.71 Baker deserted in July 1972 and returned to Belfast.McKittrick, David (1999). Lost Lives. UK: Mainstream Publications. p.249 He had acquired an English accent during his time in the British Army.Dillon, Martin (1991). The Dirty War. Random House. p.256
Ulster Defence Association Upon his return to Belfast, Baker joined the UDA, which was the largest loyalist paramilitary organisation in Northern Ireland during the Troubles. He joined the organisation long before it was proscribed in 1992. Baker was accepted into the movement and quickly became prominent as he possessed his own military firearm and had the ability to train other young members.Dillon, The Trigger Men, p.72 According to journalist Martin Dillon, Baker "strutted around the streets of his native east Belfast with a swagger and assuredness lacking in other paramilitary men who did not have an army training". As a leading member of the UDA, Baker participated in a total of 11 armed robberies and four sectarian killings; the first robbery taking place just a month after his return. Along with three other UDA accomplices, he held up the Vulcan Bar on the Newtownards Road, brandishing a .45 pistol and stealing the sum of £821 which Baker regarded as "pocket money". He quickly acquired a reputation for brutality.Wood, p.106 Rated highly by the local UDA leader Tommy Herron, he served as Herron's personal bodyguard for a time.Dillon, The Trigger Men p. 73 He also acted as bodyguard for members of the UDA's ruling body, the Inner Council. Whenever it held meetings, usually inside an East Belfast hotel, Baker would patrol the premises carrying a firearm.
Killings He was the ringleader of a UDA unit in his native east Belfast known as the "Romper Room Gang" which included Ned McCreery, who held the rank of Colonel within the UDA.Houses of the Ooreachtas Joint Committee on Justice, Equality, Defence and Women's Rights Interim Report on the Report of the Independent Commission of Inquiry into the Dublin Bombings of 1972 and 1973, November 2004. p.80. (The Barron Report 2004).Retrieved 19 January 2012 This unit was described by journalist Maeve Connolly as having been as "repugnant as the Shankill Butchers".
On 18 August 1972, the unit carried out the first of four sectarian killings. Baker shot 21-year-old barman Philip Fay five times in the head on the doorstep of his home in Island Street. Fay, who was a native of County Cavan and who had a limited understanding of the sectarian divide in Belfast, answered the door to Baker and confirmed his religion when asked if he was a Catholic. Baker then opened fire.McDonald & Cusack, p. 41 Fay had worked at the Girton Lodge Hotel, one of the locations used for UDA Inner Council meetings and as part of his job he had served drinks to the UDA leaders whilst they met. Herron had ordered Fay's killing when he found out he was a Catholic, fearing that he might have heard sensitive information at the meetings, although in fact Fay had no links whatsoever to republicans.Dillon, The Trigger Men, p. 74
This was followed a month later by the killing of another Catholic barman, Paul McCartan (52), who was abducted by the unit and brought to a UDA "romper room" for a "rompering". These notorious UDA "romper rooms" had been invented by UDA brigadier Davy Payne in the early 1970s. They were located inside disused buildings, lock-up garages or rooms above pubs and drinking clubs. Once inside, a victim would be "rompered" (brutally beaten and tortured), and then killed.Nelson, Sarah (1984). Ulster's Uncertain Defenders: Protestant Political, Paramilitary, and Community Groups and the Northern Ireland Conflict. Belfast: Appletree Press. pp.126, 146 After other members of the unit savagely beat McCartan, Baker then shot him to death. According to a Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) report, members of a foot patrol had stopped a drunk McCartan as he walked along the Newtownards Road shortly before his abduction but had let him pass after he refused a lift home. However, Baker would later claim that the police had picked him up and had left him off just fifty yards away from where they knew the UDA gang was waiting.Dillon, The Trigger Men, p. 75
In early October, James McCartan, a 21-year-old forklift driver from The Markets (no relation to Paul), was abducted from the lobby of the Park Avenue Hotel on the Holywood Road after a party. McCartan's friend John Jamison, a Protestant, had attempted to get him away from the gang but he was beaten as was McCartan's girlfriend and as Baker bundled him into the vehicle he yelled at Jamison "he's a Fenian bastard".Dillon, The Trigger Men, p. 77 He was brought to several UDA "romper rooms" located in UDA clubs in the Newtownards Road area - specifically in Finmore Street and Clermont Lane. McCartan was then stripped naked, hung up by the ankles and subjected to lengthy torture sessions at each club which included being beaten with a pickaxe handle, stabbed 200 times, and his head dropped down onto the concrete floor. The romperings were allegedly presided over by McCreery, and when they had concluded, McCartan was hooded, bundled in a car and taken to waste ground beside the Connswater River off Mersey Street where Baker shot him three times, killing him.McDonald & Cusack, p.56
Tim Pat Coogan alleged that Baker was an active participant in the brutal torture.Coogan, Tim Pat (1995). The Troubles: Ireland's ordeal 1966-1995 and the Search for Peace. New York: Palgrave. p.338 According to testimony at the subsequent trial, the UDA drinking club in Clermont Lane opened during the rompering with several UDA members and their girlfriends arriving to drink and watch. McCartan's body, which was unrecognisable, was found on 3 October on the waste ground where he had been killed. Baker would later claim that McCartan was a wanted republican although, again, he had no paramilitary connections.Dillon, The Trigger Men, p. 78
On 1 February 1973, Baker and McCreery mounted an attack on a bus which was transporting Catholic workmen in Kingsway Park, Dundonald, East Belfast. After Baker got the bus to slow down when he affected a limp crossing the street, he lobbed a hand grenade inside the vehicle, mortally wounding Patrick Eugene Heenan (47), a married man from Andersonstown with five children. Heenan had been a foreman on the construction site of a Catholic school in East Belfast. He died after receiving a fatal gash to an artery in his leg. Several of his co-workers on the bus gave statements to the RUC.
Prison and collusion claims During the spring of 1973, a series of street battles between members of the UDA and the British Army occurred in east Belfast. Herron had expected Baker to assume a leading role in these conflicts but the former soldier maintained a conspicuously low profile, a fact which led some of his fellow UDA members to hint that Baker might be an informer.Dillon, The Trigger Men, p. 79 Not long after this (again, the exact date is unknown) Baker became "sickened and disgusted" by the UDA's activities and returned to his former regiment in England. Upon his return, he was court-martialled and discharged; then on 31 May 1973 he turned up at Warminster police station where he told police that he wished to confess his role in the UDA.Dillon, The Trigger Men, p. 80 He told Sergeant Anthony Godley that he had been involved in four murders and 11 robberies and wished to make a statement to that effect, although he cautioned initially that he would not reveal the names of any of his accomplices and was only interested in his own role in the attacks. He was subsequently questioned in Salisbury and Belfast before being charged and remanded in custody at Crumlin Road gaol.Dillon, The Trigger Men, pp. 80-81
Baker was the first person to be tried in a non-jury Diplock Court. He pleaded guilty to four murders and on 15 October 1973 was sentenced to twenty five years imprisonment, with his sentence to be served outside Northern Ireland. In the course of the trial it emerged that Baker had joined the UDA for the money that was available in UDA circles. In the James McCartan murder trial held in February 1974, Baker agreed to testify against McCreery and six other UDA members, making him Northern Ireland's first loyalist supergrass. He claimed the RUC had offered him Special Category Status in exchange for his testimony.
However, the evidence Baker provided was tailored with the aim of minimising his own role in the killing, and therefore was inconsistent and often incoherent. He had claimed that McCreery and the six other accused men had tortured McCartan inside the club and one of them had then ordered Baker to shoot him dead.Murray, Raymond (1990). The SAS in Ireland. Ireland: Mercier Press. p.101 The trial judge, Sir Robert Lowry deemed Baker's evidence as "manifestly unreliable",Bruce, Steve (1992). The Red Hand: Protestant Paramilitaries in Northern Ireland. UK: Oxford University Press. p.210 and as a result, the judge dropped charges against McCreery and the other six men. Baker spent ten years of his sentence in solitary confinement. In the late 1980s he was on the same cell block as the Birmingham Six.Holroyd & Burbridge, p. 87