4 days ago
Loyalist woman killer and dangerous paedophile confronted by Sunday World
UVF murderer and child-porn perv is 'sorry' for 1970s execution of woman
Jackie MacCauley answers his front door to the Sunday World this week
The podgy pensioner pictured here is a UVF woman killer and dangerous paedophile, the Sunday World can reveal.
John 'Jackie' MacCauley (78) appeared at Antrim Magistrates Court two weeks ago where he pleaded guilty to possessing a mobile phone capable of accessing the internet, which he had been banned from having after he was convicting of possessing sordid child abuse.
MacCauley will appear in court again at the end of next month for sentencing.
At a previous court hearing, where he was facing a string of child porn offences, it emerged MacCauley had told investigating detectives: 'I'm just a dirty old bastard — I'm guilty.'
But a Sunday World probe revealed this week that MacCauley had recently bought a laptop computer which can also access the internet.
And we also learned that he even had the brass neck to ask an unsuspecting young woman to set up the new computer in the living room of his own home.
Collette in the Women's Royal Army Corps
Originally from the ferry-port town of Larne in Co. Antrim, but now living in Ballymena, MacCauley was sent down for life in 1975 for the sectarian murder of 31-year-old Catholic mother-of-four Collette Brown.
Her body was found dumped at the side of a country lane near Larne's Craigyhill estate.
A former serving soldier in the Women's Royal Army Corps, Collette was a member of the popular and ultimately tragic Kelly family from Larne's Antiville estate.
As Catholics living on a predominantly Protestant estate, the Kellys were particularly vulnerable to attack by loyalist paramilitaries.
Jackie MacCauley answers his front door to the Sunday World this week
And this week for the first time, MacCauley publicly apologised for Collette's savage murder.
Speaking on the doorstep of his Ballymena flat, MacCauley bizarrely thanked us for giving him the opportunity to express his remorse.
He said: 'I've visited Collette's grave a dozen times and each time I said I was sorry.'
But despite being pressed by the Sunday World, MacCauley refused to apologise for his persistent and ongoing paedophile behaviour.
MacCauley is quizzed this week by our man Hugh Jordan
We told MacCauley that we knew he had recently pleaded guilty to possessing a phone capable of accessing the internet, which contravened a court order.
And we told him that the courts viewed each child abuse picture found in his possession as representing an innocent victim.
MacCauley appeared lost for words. And before closing the door, he said: 'I'm not talking about that. I'm not talking any more, but thank you, thank you.'
MacCauley currently lives in a development in Ballymena which caters for over-55s. He moved there after his home on Larne's Craigyhill estate was attacked by the UDA.
MacCauley's previous home was near the famous Craigyhill super-bonfire site and just a short distance from where he dumped Collette Brown's body.
Over a nine-year period during the early years of the Troubles, the Kellys had two family members murdered by loyalists, even through both victims had served with the British security services.
MacCauley's former home in Larne after it was attacked by loyalist paramilitaries
A Larne resident who knew the Kelly family well told us: 'The Kellys' dad died at the very start of the Troubles and they had to survive as best they could.
'After the B-Specials were disbanded, young Protestants joined the UDR in droves. But they were also members of the UDA. They would wander round Craigyhill and Antiville during the day wearing their UDR uniforms,' he said.
'Then in the evening they would get out their UDA uniforms and parade around with wooden cudgels, looking for Catholic victims.'
Another Kelly brother, William, had his hand cut off with a hacksaw by drunken loyalists who had tied him to a chair inside a third-floor flat.
But the badly injured man was able to escape and run 70 yards to his sister's home on Kintyre Road, where she called an ambulance.
MacCauley is quizzed this week by our man Hugh Jordan
William was rushed to the Ulster Hospital in Belfast where, during an eight-hour operation, surgeons successfully re-attached his hacked-off hand to his wrist.
The day before Collette's body was discovered, she had attended another brother's wedding and she later went on to a party.
And it was from there she was abducted by powerfully-built Jackie MacCauley. Accompanied by a serving lance corporal in the British army's Ulster Defence Regiment, MacCauley drove the young mum to a quiet country road, where she was shot.
Separated from her husband at the time of her death, the single mum's children were aged from two and 13.
Both of her killers were later convicted of murder. MacCauley was handed a life sentence, but was released after serving just nine years behind bars.
The Kelly family plot where Collette Brown and her murdered brother James are buried
Collette is buried in the same grave as her 25-year-old brother James, who was murdered by loyalists in June 1973. James had served in the UDR for three months before quitting.
He was abducted by a UDA gang while hitching a lift back to Larne from Corr's Corner after visiting his girlfriend.
His body was found at the side of the road to Larne, just like his sister's would be two years later.
Seven years later and riddled with guilt, one of James Kelly's killers approached an off-duty police officer in a Larne hotel and he confessed to his role in the murder. He was jailed for life.
At his trial, the court heard how James had been selected for murder at a UDA meeting in a homing pigeon club in Larne. The murder squad was selected by the drawing of lots, the court also heard.
