Gordon Carrera

Eventually, in 1998, you're going to get the Good Friday Agreement.

Also, that means Scappaticci is less valuable and less needed.

And so the army are thinking, well, maybe we'll try and get him out of Northern Ireland now and kind of get him away from everything.

And they discuss his relocation with something called MI5 Central Resettlement Unit.

This is from the official report to State Knife, which the CRU, which I don't know much about, but they're looking at the options about how to

get rid of him and you know also kind of protect him from any legal repercussions and investigations which which might come i mean there's even talk about the army about staging a farewell dinner you know to say goodbye to him as he goes although it's not clear whether this actually took place but kind of bizarre thing to do but i guess it shows his importance that doesn't seem that bizarre to me yeah doesn't it i mean i i guess not i'm just thinking of the context of

But Scab?

Yeah, you're not talking about a kind of Gordievsky or a Tolkachev kind of figure, are you?

You're talking about, I don't know, it's the equivalent of having someone you've run inside of ISIS or Al-Qaeda.

I mean, maybe, maybe if they're the right kind of person.

That's probably a bit of a stretch, you're right.

They do relocate him briefly, but then he just on his own goes back to Northern Ireland without telling them.

And so, I mean, I love this fact.

It was only due to the fact he was seen driving a vehicle in Belfast that MI5 CRU became aware he'd left Great Britain and the mainland.

It just shows he's kind of, which I think is part of the point with Scappaticci, is that

They can't control him very much, which is one of the challenges all along.

I think he's his own guy.

You already get a sense of a guy who's difficult.

Yeah, that's right, because there have been lots of rumours about high-up informers in the IRA.

But the first public claim that there'd been a FRU agent, codenamed State Knife, operating within the IRA appears in articles by a journalist, Liam Clarke, in the Sunday Times in August 1999.