Barrett case adjourned to Friday

One detective revealed how Barrett, a top informer, bragged about the bloodshed during nerve-shredding encounters.

Johnston “Jonty” Brown said: “I was responsible for running some very dangerous people, some really bad, evil people. But none of them ever frightened me the way Barrett frightened me.

“We met at night. The back door of the car would open and he’d be in like a ghost. He used to just jump in and say ‘Drive’.”

During these meetings, the loyalist casually admitted to carrying out 10 murders, Mr Brown claimed,. It would be his boasts that led to his downfall.

Undercover officers from the team set up by Scotland Yard chief John Stevens to investigate allegations of police and Army collusion in the February 1989 Pat Finucane murder trapped Barrett into making a confession by posing as international drug dealers.

Barrett bragged that Mr Finucane, a solicitor who had represented republican suspects, had been “f******* massacred”.

The covert recordings also captured him declaring: “I whacked a few people in the past. People say how do you sleep, Ken? I say, I sleep fine.”

According to Brown, his tally of killings stretched into double figures and makes him as infamous as either the Yorkshire Ripper or Michael Stone, his fellow Belfast loyalist and Milltown Cemetery bomber.

“Look into Barrett’s eyes and there’s nothing there.” said the ex-detective, who took early retirement in 2001.

“When you have been in the presence of Barrett, you would compare him with Stone or Peter Sutcliffe. This man is a serial killer.

“I asked him how many he was responsible for and he held up both hands… 10. I have no reason to doubt that.”

The hatred that drove Barrett into a killing spree is believed to have been ignited by the IRA murder of a police officer he had met briefly.

Reserve constable Peter Nesbitt was blown up by a booby-trap bomb in the Woodvale area of north Belfast in March 1987. Days earlier he had admired Barrett’s dogs when the two men passed on the street, and the officer’s death was enough to tip him over the edge.

When Barrett approached police in 1991 offering information, he wanted two things: money and revenge.

He was a regular fixture at greyhound races in north Belfast, and even got Brown to drop him off at the track after their meetings.

But like most punters, he would lose more than he won on the dogs and was constantly looking for extra cash to place bets.

He had been commander of the Ulster Defence Association’s B Company in the Woodvale district of Belfast, but that was stripped from him after he was caught stealing from a racketeering kitty.

Now a rank and file volunteer, Barrett bristled with resentment at his treatment.

A burning desire to get even led him into the arms of police. Demands to be paid for his information were flatly rejected by CID, Brown insisted, although he reckons Special Branch would later pay out thousands of pounds.

The former detective revealed: “When I first met him, I offered to shake his hand but he refused. ‘I don’t want to be your friend,’ he told me.

“‘This is going to be short and sharp. I’m going to empty those bastards’.

“He also warned me what would happen if it went wrong and he ended up in jail, or the UDA found out he was an informant. Barrett told me: ‘I will seek you out and put two in your face’.”

Even his long-term girlfriend, Beverley Quirey, with whom he shared a house on the city’s Glencairn estate, had no real influence over the killer.

“Back in October ‘91, when he came to me, he said he wanted enough money to set him up in Canada,” Brown recalled.

“He said: ‘Never mind about Beverley, I’m going on my own’.”

But it was a decade later, after William Stobie, another UDA agent involved in the Finucane killing, was gunned down, that Barrett finally got out.

Fearing he was next on the hit list, the Stevens team took him out of Belfast and set him up at a safe house in England.

Still unable to keep quiet, he was captured making damning admissions in conversations taped by the BBC Panorama team.

Undoubtedly realising Barrett was ripe for a sting operation, John Stevens' men moved in on him.

He was offered a chauffeur’s job, given £200 (€294) tips and stayed at hotels around the country with two men known as Steve and Tom.

As far as he was concerned, the undercover detectives ran a German drugs empire and were importing cocaine and cannabis into England. They wanted to employ him as a hitman, he was told.

But for once it was Ken Barrett who was in the sights.

Barrett told police he was the Ulster Freedom Fighters’ commander for West Belfast when he came to them and offered information about the organisation’s activities.

As he probed him for more information on the Finucane shooting, Mr Brown was told that Barrett had become angry and agitated with the driver of the getaway car.

“Barrett said ’If you don’t drive I’ll f****** shoot you and I’ll drive’,” the court heard.

But even though the damning confessions were recorded by Mr Brown, the tape went missing and was never recovered.

Further meetings took place between the two men but Barrett never again admitted to the killing, Mr Kerr said.

As he was an agent for the intelligence services, no arrest was made and prosecutors were never alerted to the confession, the court heard.

Eight years later, when John Stevens launched his third inquiry into the Finucane affair, Barrett was arrested and interviewed about a number of murders, including that of the lawyer.

But it was only after the terrorist again revealed his role in the crime to the BBC Panorama team in August 2001 that police were able to set in place an operation that would lead to his capture.

Paid £300 (€441) in cash, he agreed to meet investigative journalist John Ware and his editor in the car park of the Culloden Hotel near Belfast, where he disclosed details of police involvement in setting up Loyalist hits.

On the day of Mr Finucane’s murder, the gunmen met at a drinking club where a briefing was given and their target’s presence at his house was allegedly confirmed by an RUC officer, the court heard.

Further meetings took place in September where the journalists used video and audio tape for conversations where Barrett claimed information was passed on by a police source about Mr Finucane’s whereabouts, Mr Kerr said.

With the killer now desperate to get out of Northern Ireland, he demanded £5,000 (€7,300) in cash for agreeing to speak to the reporter but was subsequently paid £1,000 (€1,500).

By the time the programme was broadcast in June 2002, Barrett and his family had been relocated to England.

The Stevens team had also decided to launch a covert operation aimed at securing the confession they needed to have him convicted.

The court heard of a conversation Barrett had with the two undercover policemen when he admitted "whacking" Mr Finucane - not, Barrett insisted, because he was a solicitor, but because he believed he was a republican and an IRA man.

He also admitted "whacking" other people in the past, and added: "That was my way of life at the time."