The Co-operative Bank was central – unwittingly and unhappily – to one of the most controversial political episodes of recent decades. The so-called ‘Stalker Affair’ was established to investigate allegations of a shoot to kill policy by the police and security services in Northern Ireland. It instead led to the ending of the career of one of the country’s most senior and respected police officers, ignominy for the Greater Manchester Police and complaints claiming the subversion of the law for nakedly political reasons.
John Stalker was Deputy Chief Constable of the Greater Manchester Police and so highly regarded that he was appointed to investigate allegations that Royal Ulster Constabulary had shot civilians suspected of being members of republican paramilitary organisations, without giving them the chance to surrender and be interrogated.
Stalker discovered a tape existed of one shooting, which would likely provide evidence of whether two unarmed individuals had been both set-up and illegally shot. One of those individuals was likely not even a member of a paramilitary group and may simply have been in the wrong place.
Either by coincidence or design, just as Stalker was pursuing this recorded evidence, allegations emerged about his close friendship with Manchester businessman Kevin Taylor. The police made serious and very costly investigations into Taylor’s business dealings, extraordinarily setting up an entire unit of detectives to look into Taylor and his relationship with Stalker, operating clandestinely.
Detectives discovered that Taylor’s main banking relationship was with the Co-operative Bank. Officials at the bank were leaned on by investigating detectives to reveal significant information about Taylor’s business dealings, despite this not being authorised by a court.
Police claimed these documents suggested that Taylor had over-valued properties, thereby seeking to fraudulently borrow from the bank. This formed the basis of a prosecution, despite the Co-operative Bank never claiming that any attempt at fraud had been made. Moreover, one of the Co-operative Bank’s own officials, Terence Bowley, became a co-defendant, accused of conspiracy to defraud the bank.
That the prosecution came down to allegations of attempted fraud that hang on a disputed valuation of property was itself a humiliation for the Greater Manchester Police. Unfounded, much more serious, allegations had been made against Taylor of involvement in the drugs trade, which were supposed to have involved the IRA, and also connections to the arson of a Belfast warehouse.
In its efforts to prove, unsuccessfully, that Taylor was a serious criminal, Greater Manchester Police investigated Taylor for 18 months, including ten months through a dedicated team of four senior officers and a sergeant, plus for two months using the resources of the force’s only surveillance unit.
As rumours emerged of the police interest in Taylor, his business empire was destroyed, at an estimated personal cost of £22m. The trial against Taylor, Bowley and others collapsed when it emerged that police officers were committing perjury. Taylor obtained a mere £2.4m in compensation from the Greater Manchester Police when he took a case of malicious prosecution. That case never completed, as its length, complexity and cost meant that neither party had the resources (in the police’s case, via its insurers) to see the matter through.
Stalker himself was removed from the shoot to kill investigation, replaced by Colin Sampson who was also unable to obtain a copy of the tape of evidence – which appears to have been destroyed by MI5. Stalker retired early, stained unfairly by rumours that served UK government ministers and the Royal Ulster Constabulary very well.
- ‘Decades of Deceit: The Stalker Affairs and its Legacy’ by Paddy Hillyard, 491pp, is published by Beyond the Pale Books at £20.