Geoff Knupfer

So I had this rather grandiose title of dean, you know, college dean.

Yeah, that was in 97.

And then I started doing a little bit of consultancy work.

And right out of the blue, I got a call from the Department of Justice saying, we understand you're good at finding dead bodies.

Can you come over and talk to us?

And I did, and the rest is history, I suppose.

Sure.

It's predominantly a Republican paramilitary issue more so than a Loyalist paramilitary issue.

I'm not saying categorically that there were no Loyalist cases, but the ones that are well known are certainly the Republican ones.

And both the Provisional IRA and the INLA were involved in this sort of stuff.

This was predominantly about informers, you know, shooting people who they believed were informers and concealing their bodies.

The earliest cases that the commission's dealing with, I think 1972 is the absolute earliest case.

In those later times, from mid-80s onwards, that reduces dramatically.

And where people are, to use their term, executed, they would be left on the roadside.

The bodies would be left on the roadside.

So I think a lot of people thought that even former paramilitaries would say, well, you know, the consequences of touting is execution, and that's fine.

But what they couldn't go along with was concealing the bodies and not telling anybody.

And actually, when you think about it, it defeats the object because the whole ethos of this is a deterrent.

You know, if you tout, we'll shoot you.

And if you're not going to tell anybody you've shot them and hidden the bodies, what is the point?