Joseph "Joe" Fenton (c. 1953 – 26 February 1989) was an estate agent from Belfast, Northern Ireland, killed by the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) for acting as an informer for RUC Special Branch.
[2] His immigration application was rejected by the Australian High Commission Consulate in Edinburgh, and Fenton started working as an informer for Special Branch in 1982.
[4] Special Branch bugged the houses using covert listening devices, enabling them to gather intelligence in order to try to prevent IRA attacks.
[5] The IRA's Internal Security Unit (ISU) began an investigation, but Fenton diverted suspicion away from himself by providing the names of two other informers, Gerard and Catherine Mahon who were husband and wife.
[5] The Mahons were interrogated by the ISU and confessed to informing, and were found shot dead in an alleyway in the Turf Lodge area on 8 September 1985.
[9] Former Force Research Unit operative Martin Ingram states that Fenton was taken out of Northern Ireland and transported to England by his handlers in Special Branch.
[3] Ingram states Fenton wanted to return to Northern Ireland, and asked for help from Andrew Hunter, an MP for the Conservative Party.
[11] Dillon states that Fenton was ordered to return to Northern Ireland by his handlers in Special Branch, and say he had gone to England to see a boxing match.
We want the cancer of the IRA removed from our midst but not by means that will leave the moral fibre of society damaged and the system unclean.
And it allows Joe's killers to draw a sickening veneer of respectability over cold-blooded murder and to wash their hands like Pontius Pilate.