In February 1983 Kirkpatrick was arrested on multiple charges including the murder of two policemen, two Ulster Defence Regiment soldiers, and Hugh McGinn, a Catholic member of the Territorial Army.
[1] Following his segregation from other Republican prisoners the INLA kidnapped his wife Elizabeth, in order to expose a deal they believed he was making with the Special Branch.
Those charged included Irish Republican Socialist Party vice-chairman Kevin McQuillan and former councillor Sean Flynn.
[4] Others escaped; Jim Barr, an IRSP member named by Kirkpatrick as part of the INLA, fled to the USA where, having spent 17 months in jail, he won political asylum in 1993.
The distrust and division that they sowed were the final act in splitting former comrades into warring factions and leading to the formation of the Irish People's Liberation Organisation and leading to that organization's murderous feud with the INLA in which 16 people were killed.