Charles Harding Smith

Charles Harding Smith (24 January 1931 – 1997) was a loyalist leader in Northern Ireland and the first effective leader of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA). An important figure in the Belfast-based "defence associations" that formed the basis of the UDA on its formation in 1971, Smith later became embroiled in feuds with other UDA leaders and was eventually driven out of Northern Ireland by his opponents.

Development of the UDA

A former soldier in the British Army Smith, at the time residing in Rosebank Street on the Shankill Road, called a meeting of other locals at the Leopold Street Pigeon Fanciers Club to develop a response to attacks by republicans from the neighboring Ardoyne area. The location was chosen because Smith was himself a pigeon fancier and a member of the club. At the meeting, it was agreed to establish a vigilante group, the Woodvale Defence Association (WDA), with Smith in command assisted by Davy Fogel, who organised military drilling for the forty or so recruits, and Ernie Elliott.Henry McDonald & Jim Cusack, ''UDA: Inside the Heart of Loyalist Terror'', Penguin Ireland, 2004, pp. 18–19

The WDA gained widespread notoriety and was blamed for a series of bomb attacks and shootings, most of which had been carried out by the Ulster Volunteer Force (UVF).McDonald & Cusack, ''UDA'', p. 22 Nevertheless, Smith's reputation as a hardline loyalist was boosted as a result and when his group merged with other similar vigilante movements to form the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) in late 1971 he was chosen as chairman of the new group's thirteen-member Security Council ahead of the other leading candidates Tommy Herron and Jim Anderson. According to journalist Martin Dillon, Smith was heavily influenced by William Craig and William McGrath, both of whom saw a need for a group to replace the Ulster Special Constabulary and felt that they could easily influence Smith to their way of thinking.

Smith soon took charge of procuring arms for the UDA. In early 1972, working in tandem with Belfast businessman John Campbell who agreed to bankroll the purchases, he was put in contact with a Scottish arms dealer from whom Smith was to purchase £50,000 worth of weapons. Smith sent three WDA associates, John White, Bobby Dalzell, and Robert Lusty (who was also a serving officer in the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC)), to meet the arms dealer in a London hotel, following them without attending the actual meeting. The "arms dealer" was actually a Special Branch agent and, after recording the conversation with the WDA men, arrested all three. Smith went to Scotland Yard the same day to inquire about his friends only to be arrested himself.

Smith remained in custody in England until December 1972 when his case came to trial. Campbell claimed that the deal had been organised for the RUC to entrap the arms dealer, whom they believed to be a Provisional IRA member and a series of mistakes by the prosecution helped to ensure that the case collapsed with Smith acquitted. The trial was used as part of early arguments regarding collusion between the RUC and loyalists as a list of RUC Special Branch suspects was uncovered in Smith's house while he attempted to call Chief Constable Graham Shillington as a character witness.

Return to Belfast

By the time Smith returned to Belfast in December 1972 there had been changes in the UDA with Tommy Herron in effective control of the organisation and Davy Fogel the dominant figure amongst the WDA. Smith immediately took back control of his west Belfast stronghold, threatening Fogel with death if he didn't fall into line. Fogel, a close ally of Ernie Elliott, who was killed in circumstances that Smith had been rumoured to be involved in, although it was later determined that Elliott was shot dead after a drunken brawl on Sandy Row had descended into a gunfight, decided it was best not to go up against Smith and stood down.

However, Smith was not satisfied and, after putting out intelligence that Fogel had been taking UDA funds for himself, arrested Fogel and held him captive for three hours in a Shankill social club where he was told to leave the area. Fogel briefly left for east Belfast but when the UDA there made it clear he wasn't welcome either he left to live in England, from where he controversially gave an interview about his time in the UDA to ''The Sunday Times''. Among claims made by Fogel in this interview was one that Smith was attempting to take control of the UDA with the help of the UVF. Smith was a strong admirer of the UVF's military structure and hoped to replicate it in the UDA but he had a deep dislike of UVF leader Gusty Spence