Career
All were released unharmed. Despite the kidnap, in May 1983 ten men were charged with various offences based on evidence from Kirkpatrick. Those charged included Irish Republican Socialist Party vice-chairman Kevin McQuillan and former councillor Sean Flynn.
IRSP chairman James Brown was charged with the murder of a police officer
27 people were convicted based on Kirkpatrick"s statements on December 1985. 24 of these would have their convictions overturned by December 1986.
Gerard Steenson was given five life sentences for the deaths of the same five individuals that Kirkpatrick himself had been convicted of. These included UDR soldier Colin Quinn, shot in Belfast in December 1980.
The distrust and division that they sowed were the final act in splitting former comrades into warring factions and leading to the formation of the Irish People"s Liberation Organisation and leading to that organisation"s murderous feud with the INLA in which 16 people were killed.
Kirkpatrick was convicted of murder and sentenced to life imprisonment. lieutenant was recommended that he serve ten years as compared to the then normal tariff of twenty years plus. He is now living under a secret identity, whereabouts unknown.
