Late loyalist terror chief confessesed to sectarian murder of taxi driver

Sunday World

04-05-2025

The 41-year-old was shot dead by the UFF at Dunluce Avenue in Belfast in April 1991
Winston Rea was widely named as the leader of the loyalist terror group, The Red Hand Commando.
Late loyalist terror chief Winston 'Winkie' Rea confessed his part in the sectarian murder of taxi driver John O'Hara in an interview for the Boston Tapes project.
The Sunday World first revealed his confession as far back as 2015 when it emerged police were attempting to gain access to the tapes.
This week the Police Ombudsman released a damning report on the RUC investigation into Mr O'Hara's murder in which they found the handling of the case to be 'ineffective' and not capable of bringing the perpetrators to justice.
The 41-year-old father of five was shot dead by the UFF at Dunluce Avenue in Belfast in April 1991. He had been lured to collect a bogus fare when he was approached by two masked men. In her report, the Police Ombudsman said complaints from the O'Hara family about the RUC probe were 'legitimate and justified'.
Marie Anderson said: 'Although the initial police response was comprehensive and of a good standard, the subsequent murder inquiry was not capable of bringing those responsible to justice.'
Rea, who died in 2023 after years of deteriorating health, had been due to stand trial on charges in relation to the O'Hara murder and that of another Belfast man, John Devine, who was killed in 1989.
The wheelchair-bound terror chief, who for years headed up UVF sister organisation the Red Hand Commando (RHC), made several court appearances but died before the trial started.
In 2015 the PSNI issued a fresh appeal for information on the murder of the two men, both of whom were taxi drivers, amid speculation they were attempting to retrieve Rea's recorded interview with Boston College.
The Troubles legacy project involves taped interviews with republican and loyalist paramilitaries in which they detailed their involvement in the Troubles on the condition it would only be made public after their deaths.
However, police secured access to Rea's tapes after a lengthy legal battle.
Winston 'Winkie' Rea
Detectives sought access to the tapes on the grounds they contained significant information about 'serious crimes'. The ex-RHC boss argued such a move would be a breach of his privacy and took his cases to the European Court of Human Rights.
It was the final stop in a desperate campaign to keep the contents secret which took the case to the Court of Appeal and the Supreme Court in London.
Mr Devine was shot eight times in the head and chest when loyalist gunmen burst into Fallswater Street home off the Falls Road as he sat reading a newspaper. Despite claims by his killers that he was an 'active republican', it was accepted the father of three was the victim of a sectarian murder.
Rea was among dozens of loyalists and republicans who provided testimonies to Boston College staff compiling an oral history of the Northern Ireland conflict.
Assurances that the contents would remain confidential until death were dealt a blow in 2013 when detectives investigating the abduction and murder of Belfast mother-of-ten Jean McConville back in 1972 secured the transcripts of former IRA woman Dolours Price's account.
Speaking to the Sunday World in 2022, months before he died, Rea refused to be drawn on his role in the O'Hara and Devine murders.
'What's the point in dragging all that up now?' he said. 'It won't bring them back, I was a player in the peace process, I helped deliver the loyalist ceasefires, is that not more important?'
The O'Hara family have long suspected that a person or persons involved in the killing were under the protection of the security forces.
The report also revealed that two guns used in the murder have disappeared from police evidence stores.
Solicitor Pádraig Ó Muirigh, for the family, said the findings 'are a damning indictment of the RUC investigation'.
He added: 'The breadth and nature of these failings cannot be explained by mere incompetence.
'The O'Hara family have a long-held view that those involved in the murder were protected from prosecution by the RUC. That view has been reinforced by these findings.'
Despite a UFF claim taxi drivers were being used by republicans to target loyalists, police stressed Mr O'Hara had no connection to any organisation.
The report identified a series of alarming failings by the RUC.
It found one suspect was not arrested despite being connected to the murder by four separate pieces of intelligence – one of which suggested that he had been a gunman.
The weapons used were a 9mm Browning pistol, recovered in Moira in January 1992 following another murder, and a .32 calibre Smith & Wesson revolver, recovered in Belfast in 1995.
Both have gone missing.
'I am of the view that weapons used ought to have been retained by police for evidential purposes in respect of unsolved murders, including Mr O'Hara's,' Ms Anderson said.