‘British Intelligence dug his grave and IRA put him in it’: Frank Hegarty’s son

British military intelligence and its most high-ranking agent allowed a Derry man to be killed by the IRA to “keep the Anglo-Irish Agreement alive,” the dead man’s son has said. Ryan Hegarty’s father, Frank, was shot dead almost 30 years ago after the IRA discovered he was working as a British army agent. Ryan also revealed his mother was offered, but refused, life-changing money to join his father in England after he fled the city following the discovery of a large haul of IRA weapons in the Republic. He also said he believed the British army agent codenamed “Stakeknife” was involved in his killing. The murder of Frank Hegarty is one of over 50 linked to “Stakeknife,” named by the media as Freddie Scappaticci. It was announced yesterday that a team of detectives from police forces outside Northern Ireland is to investigate the activities of the former West Belfast man, regarded as the British army’s most high-ranking agent within the IRA. Speaking publicly for the first time about the killing, Ryan told last night’s BBC One Northern Ireland “Spotlight” programme he believed his father was “recruited” by British military intelligence and after he was offered immunity from prosecution in 1979 after being accused of being involved in the killing of catholic civilian works, John Dunn (46) and Cecilia Byrne (53), who died when a bomb exploded under their car outside Ebrington Barracks five years earlier. The programme claimed Frank Hegarty was part of an IRA quarter master team involved in hiding weapons shipped to Ireland from Lybia. Their discovery in three arms dumps in counties Sligo and Roscommon came after the Derry man had met with his “handlers” on 20 January, 1986, and followed Taoiseach Garrett Fitzgerald and British Prime Minister signing the Anglo-Irish Agreement, which included a promise of increased co-operation in the battle against the IRA. Following the discovery, the Hegarty family were held captive in Ballyshannon in Co Donegal for 10 days. Ryan said he believed they were held hostage as the IRA feared his father would turn “supergrass.” Seven weeks after they were released unharmed, Ryan’s mother was flown to London to meet his father who was accompanied by British intelligence officers. Ryan added: “They offered my mother over £100,000 if she would go off with my father. She refused because she knew if she had took that money she was never getting back to Derry again. That was it. It was over. Her life here was over, finished. We would have been looking over our shoulders for the rest of our lives.” Ryan said his mother made the right decision to “walk out” on his father. He added: “My mother was thinking about us.” Ryan told reporter Darragh McIntyre: “My father was sacrificed to keep the Anglo-Irish Agreement alive. How do I work that out? It would have proved to everybody that the authorities were getting tough on the IRA with these weapon seizures.” Speaking of his father’s return the city, which the Hegarty family claim occurred after he was given an assurance by Martin McGuinness that he would not be harmed – a claim denied by the now Deputy First Minister - Ryan said: “He came back for my mother, he came back for me and he came back for my sister, because he missed us, which any father would.” When asked was his father “foolish” to come back, Ryan replied: “Very.” Ryan revealed he only saw his father once when he returned - a planned meeting at An Grianan fort just across the border at Burt in Donegal. The following day, his father met with the IRA in the car park of a Buncrana hotel before he was taken away to be interrogated by IRA members, one of which is claimed to have been Scappaticci. He was found dead three days later on a road along the Tyrone-Donegal border, close to Castlederg. He had been shot four times in the head. Ryan said British Intelligence could have saved him but chose not to. He said: “They washed their hands of my father, I believe.” Ryan said a recording of Scappaticci talking about his father’s death was evidence he was instrumental in his murder and whatever he knew, so did his “handlers.” He said: “When my father went to meet the IRA, Freddie Scappaticci would have had to inform his ‘handlers,’ what the procedure was, where they were going to take my father, who was all there, what was going to happen to him, they would have known everything.” Speaking during his first ever visit to the spot where his father was found dead, Ryan said: “British Intelligence dug his grave and the IRA put him into it.” Photo shows Ryan Hegarty making his first visit to where his father was found shot dead.