Brigadier James Gordon Kerr,[1] OBE, QGM (born c. 1948) is a retired senior British Army officer who served as defence attaché to the British embassy in Beijing and was head of the Force Research Unit in Northern Ireland.
He served in Cyprus before his first posting to Northern Ireland in 1972, where he worked as an undercover intelligence officer.
Kerr was awarded the Queen's Gallantry Medal in 1982 and,[2] in 1987, he became head of the Force Research Unit (FRU), a military intelligence unit that ran agents in both Irish republican and Ulster loyalist paramilitary groups.
Much controversy stemmed from the amount of military intelligence the FRU gave to the loyalist groups.
Sir Hugh Orde, former PSNI Chief Constable, said Kerr, as former head of the Force Research Unit, should have been put on trial.