Sir

Patrick Walker

KCB
Born
Patrick Jeremy Walker

(1932-02-25)25 February 1932[1]
Kuala Lumpur, Federated Malay States
Died13 October 2021(2021-10-13) (aged 89)
NationalityBritish
EducationThe King's School, Canterbury
Alma materTrinity College, Oxford
Occupation(s)Intelligence officer, civil servant
Espionage activity
AllegianceUnited Kingdom
Service branchMI5
Service years1963–1992
RankDirector General of MI5

Sir Patrick Jeremy Walker, KCB (25 February 1932 – 13 October 2021) was a British civil servant who was Director General (DG) of MI5, the United Kingdom's internal security service, from 1988 to 1992.

Early life and education

Walker was the only surviving son of civil servant Reginald Plumer Walker and his wife, Gladys. He was born at Bungsai Hospital in Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, where his parents were married in 1929.[2] The Walkers had once owned considerable lands in northern Nottinghamshire around Mattersey and Lound, but, according to his research, lost it all "thanks to a combination of incompetence and the agricultural slump" at the end of the 19th century. His paternal grandfather, Plumer Cosby Walker, worked for the Great Northern Railway.[3]

After three years in Malaysia, the family moved to Nairobi, Kenya, where his father was chief accountant of East African Railways. At age 13, Walker left Kenya to be educated at The King's School, Canterbury, followed by Trinity College, Oxford.[2][3]

Career

From 1956 to 1962, Walker served in the colonial administration in Uganda as part of the Foreign Service.[2] He joined MI5 from the Ugandan Colonial Service in 1963.[4]

Walker worked extensively in counter-terrorism. At the behest of Sir Maurice Oldfield (MI5) and incoming RUC Chief Constable John Hermon, in January 1980 he was asked to review the practices and organisation of intelligence gathering by the Royal Ulster Constabulary in Northern Ireland.[5] Recommendations from the report were implemented via a memo issued in February 1981.[6] The report established primacy of RUC Special Branch over all areas of intelligence gathering, and the Branch would also absorb weapons and firearms analysis. All intelligence contacts were to be offered to Special Branch, and all proposed arrests were to be cleared with the Branch. As a "basic rule" Criminal Investigation Department (CID) officers were not to discuss a Special Branch operation or investigation with other members of CID without express permission from the Branch. It is claimed by critics that the Walker Report cemented the position of RUC Special Branch as a force within a force, beyond normal checks and balances; established a policy of primacy of intelligence requirements over criminal investigation; led to a perception of informants as an untouchable "protected species"; and to an acceptance of cover-up and fabrication of evidence, such as that revealed after the so-called "shoot-to-kill" killings by police in 1982, that formed the subject of the Stalker inquiry.[7][8][9][10][11] The implementing memo became known in 2001;[8] the underlying report itself was declassified in June 2018.[11]

Walker went on to be head of the counter-terrorism department.[12] He was Director General of MI5 from January 1988 to February 1992.[12][13] His term of office saw the statutory basis of MI5 established for the first time through the Security Service Act 1989 and the end of the Cold War. He was knighted in the 1990 Birthday Honours.[14]

Personal life

Walker, whose father was a Presbyterian and his mother an Anglican, was baptised in the Presbyterian Church of England in York at a few months old. He was confirmed as a member of the Church of England by Ven. Geoffrey Fisher, Archbishop of Canterbury, at 16 years old while attending school. He would convert to Roman Catholicism two years after marrying his wife, Susan Hastings, in April 1955, making him the first Roman Catholic to serve as DG of MI5. They had three children and nine grandchildren.[3]

In 2009, Walker wrote an autobiography of his days in Africa, Towards Independence in Africa: A District Officer in Uganda at the End of Empire.[3]

He died on 13 October 2021, at the age of 89.[15]

Bibliography

  • Walker, Patrick (2009). Towards Independence in Africa: A District Officer in Uganda at the End of Empire. London: I. B. Tauris & Co. ISBN 978-1-84885-019-4.

References

  1. ↑ Mosley, Charles, ed. (2003). Burke's Peerage, Baronetage & Knighthood (107 ed.). Burke's Peerage & Gentry. p. 4046. ISBN 0-9711966-2-1.
  2. 1 2 3 "Walker, Sir Patrick (Jeremy), (born 25 Feb. 1932)". WHO'S WHO & WHO WAS WHO. 2007. doi:10.1093/ww/9780199540884.013.u38605. ISBN 978-0-19-954088-4. Retrieved 15 April 2021.
  3. 1 2 3 4 Patrick, Walker (2009). Towards Independence in Africa: A District Officer in Uganda at the End of Empire. The Radcliffe Press. pp. 1–6. ISBN 9780857717443. Retrieved 6 June 2019.
  4. ↑ The Defence of the Realm, by Christopher Andrew, Page 560, Published by Allen Lane, 2009, ISBN 978-0-7139-9885-6
  5. ↑ P.J. Walker, Report on the Interchange of Intelligence between Special Branch and C.I.D., and on the R.U.C. units involved, including those in Crime Branch C1(1), 31 March 1980. Declassified 2018. Copy via the Committee on the Administration of Justice.
  6. ↑ The Walker Report (RUC memo), 23 February 1981. via Pat Finucane Centre website. Retrieved 20 January 2019.
  7. ↑ Policing the Police, Insight, Ulster TV, 1 May 2001; transcript via Relatives for Justice
  8. 1 2 Richard Norton-Taylor and Nick Hopkins, Security service told RUC that it could put spying on terrorists ahead of solving crime, The Guardian, 14 June 2001
  9. ↑ Ian Cobain, Northern Ireland: when Britain fought terror with terror, The Guardian, 9 July 2015
  10. ↑ Alan Simpson, How Special Branch betrayed the police, The Belfast Telegraph, 5 July 2016
  11. 1 2 Ian Cobain and Owen Bowcott, RUC told to put intelligence before arrests, reveals secret MI5 report, The Guardian, 26 June 2018
  12. 1 2 "Sir Patrick Walker (Director General 1987–92)". MI5. Retrieved 17 June 2018.
  13. ↑ Andrew, Page 853
  14. ↑ "No. 52173". The London Gazette. 15 June 1990. p. 3.
  15. ↑ "Sir Patrick Walker, Director General of MI5 who led the way as the agency shifted focus at the end of the Cold War – obituary". The Telegraph. 19 October 2021. (subscription required)
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