Bed of Lies · The Telegraph

Agent 6137 | 3

February 6, 2025·58 min·5 clips

Brian Nelson trembles in Crumlin Road Jail, knowing his fingerprints are across multiple murders, while Detective John Stevens finally has him in custody.

Brian Nelson is shaking. The episode begins in 1990, with Nelson held in Crumlin Road Jail after Detective John Stevens has forced his way through fire, flight, and a threat to arrest the head of the army. The pressure has got to Nelson. His fingerprints are across multiple murders, and the old sense that nobody could touch him starts to slip. Stevens has him, but Nelson is still the kind of man who knows how protected systems work. Then Pat Finucane moves to the front of the story. Brian had heard McKee was interested in the solicitor and told his handlers that attention was turning toward Finucane. He also watched Pat's office. He got a photograph of Finucane with a well-known IRA member and passed it to a gunman, who folded it into a brown leather bomber type jacket. The warning did not reach Pat. Finucane was murdered the following Sunday, shot dead in front of his wife and children. Stevens calls it one of the most controversial killings of the Troubles, and he is blunt about Finucane himself: Patrick Finucane was not in the IRA. He was a defence lawyer doing his job. After that, Nelson seems to grow into the role. The more killing he is connected to, the more important he appears to feel. Official material keeps leaking outward. After Finucane's death, the UDA gets more documents, and rogue soldiers in the UDR film a security-force briefing room for them. The camera catches wall-mounted photographs of IRA members. A voice gives personal details tied to murder. Loughlin McGinn appears in the video. Nelson again tells his handlers what the UDA has and what it plans to steal. The FRU does not stop it. With the material in hand, Nelson encourages attacks on people shown in the video. By then, warning has become participation, and intelligence has become direction.

As heard by us

A steady account of how intelligence fed into murder.

Brian Nelson's arrest in Crumlin Road Jail is the hinge, but the episode is really about how he became useful inside the wider targeting network.

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Why you'd press play

You want a sober route into the Brian Nelson and Pat Finucane story.

Read the full recommendation in PlayNext →

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