69 Facts About Robin Jackson

Robin Jackson was a senior officer in the Ulster Volunteer Force during The Troubles in Northern Ireland.

Robin Jackson commanded the UVF's Mid-Ulster Brigade from 1975 to the early 1990s, when Billy Wright took over as leader.

From his home in the small village of Donaghcloney, County Down, a few miles south-east of Lurgan, Robin Jackson is alleged to have organised and committed a series of killings, mainly against Catholic civilians, although he was never convicted in connection with any killing and never served any lengthy prison terms.

An article by Paul Foot in Private Eye suggested that Robin Jackson led one of the teams that bombed Dublin on 17 May 1974, killing 26 people, including two infants.

Journalist Kevin Dowling in the Irish Independent alleged that Robin Jackson had headed the gang that perpetrated the Miami Showband killings, which left three members of the cabaret band dead and two wounded.

Findings noted in a report by the Historical Enquiries Team confirmed that Robin Jackson was linked to the Miami Showband attack through his fingerprints, which had been found on the silencer specifically made for the Luger pistol used in the shootings.

Robin Jackson was at one-time a member of the Ulster Defence Regiment but was discharged from the regiment for undisclosed reasons.

Robin Jackson was born into a Church of Ireland family in the small, mainly Protestant hamlet of Donaghmore, County Down, Northern Ireland on 27 September 1948, one of seven children of John Robin Jackson, a farmhand and Eileen Muriel.

Robin Jackson made a living by working in a shoe factory and delivering chickens for the Moy Park food processing company throughout most of the 1970s.

Around the same time Robin Jackson was expelled from the regiment for undisclosed reasons, he joined the UVF Mid-Ulster Brigade's Lurgan unit.

Anne Cadwallader states in her 2013 book Lethal Allies that Robin Jackson was expelled from the UDR on 4 March 1974; by then he was discernibly involved in UVF activity.

Robin Jackson's leadership was endorsed by the UVF's supreme commander Gusty Spence.

Robin Jackson later joined the UDR, serving as a permanent staff instructor and holding the rank of sergeant.

Robin Jackson had close ties to loyalist extremists from Dungannon such as brothers Wesley and John James Somerville, with whom he was often spotted drinking in the Morning Star pub in the town.

Robin Jackson was first arrested on 8 November 1973 for the killing on 28 October of Patrick Campbell, a Catholic trade unionist from Banbridge who was gunned down on his doorstep.

Robin Jackson had got a good look at the two men, who drove off in a Ford Cortina after the shooting, and although she identified Jackson as the killer at an identity parade, murder charges against him were dropped on 4 January 1974 at Belfast Magistrates' Court.

Weir stated in an affidavit that Robin Jackson was one of those who had planned and carried out the Dublin car bombings.

Robin Jackson then drove across the border to Dublin, crossing the Boyne River at Oldbridge.

Robin Jackson was questioned following the Yorkshire Television programme and he denied any involvement in the Dublin attacks.

Robin Jackson's name had appeared on a Garda list of suspects for the bombings.

Subsequent to his alleged killing of Hanna outside his home in Lurgan in the early hours of 27 July 1975, Robin Jackson assumed command of the Mid-Ulster Brigade.

Joe Tiernan suggested that Robin Jackson killed Hanna on account of the latter's refusal to participate in the Miami Showband killings.

Robin Jackson added that although the British Army was aware of this, Jackson was never told, as it was feared he would decide to become an informer himself.

Investigative journalist Paul Larkin, in his book A Very British Jihad: collusion, conspiracy, and cover-up in Northern Ireland maintained that Robin Jackson, accompanied by Harris Boyle, had shot Hanna after learning that he had passed on information regarding the Dublin bombings.

David McKittrick in Lost Lives suggested that Robin Jackson had actually killed Hanna in order to obtain a cache of weapons the latter held.

Robin Jackson was alleged by Kevin Dowling, Joe Tiernan, and the Pat Finucane Centre to have led the UVF gang that carried out the Miami Showband ambush and massacre at Buskhill, outside Newry on 31 July 1975, which left band members Brian McCoy, Fran O'Toole and Tony Geraghty dead.

Loyalist paramilitarism researcher Jeanne Griffin suggested that Robin Jackson had planned the ambush as a means to eliminate Brian McCoy who had strong family connections to the Orange Order and the security forces.

When McCoy refused, Robin Jackson saw this as a betrayal of the loyalist cause so devised the plan to ambush McCoy and his bandmates in retaliation.

Robin Jackson suggests that it was Jackson who shot McCoy dead in the first volley of gunfire and it was the gunman, surviving bassist Stephen Travers heard, kicking McCoy's dead body afterwards as well as firing another round into him.

Robin Jackson based her theories on the nine bullets that had been fired from a Luger into McCoy and that Jackson's fingerprints were found on the silencer that was used for a Luger.

Robin Jackson had afterwards attended Hanna's funeral, where he was photographed standing beside Wesley Somerville.

On 5 August 1975, Robin Jackson was taken in and questioned by the RUC as a suspect in the Miami Showband killings; he was released two days later without facing any charges.

Neill was fatally shot in Portadown on 25 January 1976 allegedly by Robin Jackson for having passed on information to the RUC about the people involved in the Showband attack.

Former British soldier and psychological warfare operative Major Colin Wallace stated that he was told in 1974 that Robin Jackson was working as an agent for the RUC's Special Branch.

Robin Jackson confirmed this allegation in a letter written to a colleague dated 14 August 1975 in which he named Jackson as an RUC Special Branch agent.

The findings noted in this report confirmed that Robin Jackson was linked to the killings.

The HET Report identified Robin Jackson as having been an RUC Special Branch agent.

The 2006 Interim Report of Mr Justice Barron's inquiry into the Dundalk bombing of 1975 concluded that Robin Jackson was one of the suspected bombers "reliably said to have had relationships with British Intelligence and or RUC Special Branch officers".

The 2006 Interim Report named Robin Jackson as having possibly been one of the two gunmen in the shooting death of the McKearney couple on 23 October 1975.

The shooting took place at their home in Moy, County Tyrone; Robin Jackson was linked to the Sterling submachine gun used in the killings.

John Weir claimed that Robin Jackson led the group who bombed Kay's Tavern pub in Dundalk on 19 December 1975, which killed two men.

Barron implicated the "Glenanne gang" in the bombing Robin Jackson was not identified by any eyewitnesses at or in the vicinity of Kay's Tavern.

Weir maintained that it was Robin Jackson who shot 61-year-old Joseph O'Dowd and his two nephews, Barry and Declan, to death at a family celebration in Ballydougan, near Gilford; although Robin Jackson had not been at the scene where the Reavey brothers had been killed twenty minutes earlier.

The findings noted in the HET Report on the Miami Showband killings revealed that on 19 May 1976, two fingerprints belonging to Robin Jackson were discovered on the metal barrel of a home-made silencer constructed for a Luger pistol.

When shown the Luger, silencer and magazine, Robin Jackson denied having handled them.

Robin Jackson had allegedly been using the tape whilst lapping hoses for beer kegs at the bar.

Robin Jackson went on to say that he was forewarned, using the words: "I should clear as there was a wee job up the country that I would be done for and there was no way out of it for me".

Robin Jackson was detained in custody and went to trial on 11 November 1976 at a Diplock Court held at Belfast City Commission, charged only with possession of the silencer.

The Miami inquiry team was never informed of these developments and Robin Jackson was never questioned about the Miami Showband killings following the discovery of his fingerprints on the silencer.

Barney O'Dowd claimed RUC detectives in the 1980s admitted to him that Robin Jackson had been the man who shot the three O'Dowd men, but the evidence had not been sufficient to charge him with the killings.

Robin Jackson maintained that in June 1976 an RUC detective came to see him at his home and told him the gunman could not be charged with the killings as he was the "head of the UVF" and a "hard man" who could not be broken during police interrogation.

Robin Jackson, according to Weir, carried a knife and hammer, and boasted to Weir that if they happened to "find a suitable person to kill", he [Robin Jackson] "knew how to do it with those weapons".

Weir was one of the RUC men later convicted of the killing, along with his SPG colleague, Billy McCaughey, and he named Robin Jackson as having been the gunman, alleging that Robin Jackson had told him after the shooting that he had shot Strathearn twice when the latter opened the door.

The gun that Robin Jackson used had been given to him by McCaughey, with the instructions that he was only to fire through an upstairs window to frighten the occupants and make sure they "got the message", and not to kill anyone.

Kerr and Robin Jackson have not been interviewed by the police because the police state they are virtually immune to interrogation and the common police consensus is that to arrest and interview either man is a waste of time.

Journalist Liam Clarke alleged that in early 1978, Weir and Robin Jackson traveled to Castleblaney with the intention of kidnapping an IRA volunteer named Dessie O'Hare from a pub called The Spinning Wheel.

Robin Jackson was remanded in custody to Crumlin Road Prison in Belfast to await trial.

On 20 January 1981, Robin Jackson was brought before the Belfast Crown Court on charges of possession of guns and ammunition, and was sentenced to seven years in prison.

Robin Jackson was responsible for more deaths in the North [Northern Ireland] than any other person I knew.

Wallace named Robin Jackson as having been "centrally-involved" in the Dublin bombings, but like Weir, suggested that the principal organiser had been Billy Hanna.

Robin Jackson had many allies still serving in the UDR and close links to special forces soldiers.

In retaliation, Robin Jackson reportedly approached members of the violent loyalist Shankill Butchers gang in Belfast, who shot and seriously wounded Campbell on 18 May 1984.

Gorrod wrote that Robin Jackson kept hidden files that incriminated the politicians and businessmen who were involved with Robin Jackson in the loyalist arms shipments.

Joe Gorrod is the only journalist to make these allegations although Henry McDonald affirmed that Robin Jackson lived for a period of time in South Africa during the 1980s.

Robin Jackson was confronted in 1998 by the son of RUC Sergeant Joseph Campbell, a Catholic Sergeant gunned down outside the Cushendall, County Antrim RUC station in February 1977, as he was locking up.

The UVF, at a secret meeting with journalists, declared that Robin Jackson had no part in Campbell's killing.

Robin Jackson died of lung cancer at his Donaghcloney home on 30 May 1998; he was buried on 1 June in a private ceremony in the St Bartholomew Church of Ireland churchyard in his native Donaghmore, County Down.

Robin Jackson's father had died in 1985; his mother outlived Jackson for five years.

Liam Clarke suggested the killing of Billy Hanna was the only killing Robin Jackson ever regretted, admitting it had been "unfair" to kill him.