Ex-Special Branch agent Marty McGartland has sent a shock message to republicans and loyalists thinking of turning supergrass – don't do it.
And the West Belfast man who spied on the IRA for five years before fleeing the North slammed the return of supergrass trials as "a step back into the bad old days".
McGartland told Sunday World he hopes the ground-breaking case against 14 loyalists currently before Belfast's Laganside court fails. "It's not justice, it's a pantomime," he said.
"People might expect me to support this trial but I couldn't be more against it. I'm all for putting paramilitaries behind bars but using supergrasses is lazy, poor policing. Nobody should be jailed solely on the word of an alleged fellow paramilitary who may well have an agenda.
"If the PSNI has a case against suspects it should go before the court in the normal way. Fingerprints and other DNA material, CCTV footage, and actual hard evidence must be presented."
And McGartland said he wouldn't even support the use of supergrasses against the Provos who have tried twice to murder him. "Supergrass trials are wrong whether it's loyalists or republicans in the dock. They drag the legal system into the gutter and give Northern Ireland a bad name."
McGartland said he feared for the future of self-confessed UVF men, brothers Ian and Robert Stewart, the star witnesses against alleged members of the UVF's notorious Mount Vernon gang: "I know what awaited my friend Raymond Gilmour after his time in court and it's a horrible existence."
In 1983, Gilmour dramatically gave evidence against 31 Derry men and women in one of the North's biggest ever supergrass trials. The case was eventually thrown out. "Ray's life was destroyed after he became a supergrass," said McGartland.
"He now has a bad drink problem and suffers severe depression. MI5 wont even pay for him to see a psychiatrist. He lost contact with his family. He couldn't go to his parents' funeral and he still can't see his kids.
"Ray did everything the security services asked of him. They used him, then spat him out. A supergrass is resettled in a new location but it's a Mickey Mouse arrangement. If the person has problems later, the security services don't want to know. It's just 'bye, bye, have a nice life'. "
McGartland warned the Stewart brothers not to be naïve about what lay in store: "If they've been promised great things after they leave Northern Ireland, they could be in for a rude awakening.
"The lads will be paranoid wherever they're resettled. Their lives will be in freefall and, judging by other people's experiences, the security services won't give a damn. There's nobody more callous and ruthless once you're past your sell-by-date."
