Colin Wallace

Colin Wallace
Born	c. 1943 Randalstown, Northern Ireland
Allegiance	British Army
Rank	Captain
Unit	Psychological operations
Battles/wars	The Troubles
Other work	Management consultant - retired

John Colin Wallace (born c. 1943) is a former British member of the Intelligence Corps in Northern Ireland and a psychological warfare specialist. He was one of the members of the intelligence agency-led 'Clockwork Orange' project, alleged to have been an attempt to smear various individuals including a number of senior British politicians in the early 1970s. He also attempted to draw public attention to the Kincora Boys' Home sexual abuse scandal several years before the Royal Ulster Constabulary finally intervened.

He was wrongly convicted of manslaughter in 1981, for which he spent six years in gaol, until 1987. The conviction was later quashed in the light of new forensic and other evidence that raised serious questions about the dubious nature of the evidence used to convict Wallace initially. The journalist Paul Foot, in his book Who framed Colin Wallace?, suggested that Wallace may have been framed for the killing, possibly to discredit the allegations he was making.

This view was similarly expressed by Alex Carlile QC (now Lord Carlile), who later speculated that this may have been the motive not just for the alleged frameup, but also for murder.

Wallace was born in Randalstown, Northern Ireland, in 1943 and educated at Ballymena Academy. He was commissioned into the Territorial Army in 1961, and later became a marksman in the paramilitary Ulster Special Constabulary, or 'B Specials'. A former cadet officer in the Irish Guards, he was commissioned in 1972 into the Ulster Defence Regiment, part of the Regular Army, and was immediately granted the rank of captain. He became the Regiment's Psychological Operations officer. He was seconded to the New Zealand SAS before working for the British Intelligence Corps as a psychological warfare officer. During the early 1970s he ran the British Army's free-fall parachute display team in Northern Ireland, taking part in a variety of 'Hearts and Minds' projects throughout the region. Several members of that team were also members of the Special Air Service (SAS) or the Intelligence Corps. In 1969, The Irish Guards Association Journal carried this reference to Wallace: "He is a great training enthusiast and is never happier than when he is on top of one 3,000-foot peak busily engaged in plotting his hop to the next one. He will eventually achieve great fame as he will, no doubt, be the first Brigade officer to visit RHQ without getting salute at the main gate - as knowing him, he will surely parachute in."

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