Journalist Kevin Dowling in the Irish Independent alleged that Jackson had headed the gang that perpetrated the Miami Showband killings, which left three members of the cabaret band dead and two wounded.

Findings noted in a report by the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) (released in December 2011) confirmed that Jackson was linked to the Miami Showband attack through his fingerprints, which had been found on the silencer specifically made for the Luger pistol used in the shootings.

[27] The Pat Finucane Centre, in collaboration with an international panel of inquiry (headed by Professor Douglass Cassel, formerly of Northwestern University School of Law) has implicated this gang in 87 killings which were carried out in the 1970s against Catholics and nationalists.

[38] According to Weir, Jackson, along with the main organiser Billy Hanna and Davy Payne (UDA, Belfast), led one of the two UVF units that bombed Dublin on 17 May 1974 in three separate explosions, resulting in the deaths of 26 people, including two infant girls.

[43] Although the incriminating evidence against Jackson had comprised eight hours of recorded testimony which came from one of his purported chief accomplices in the bombings, the programme did not name him directly during the transmission as the station did not want to risk an accusation of libel.

[47] Thirty minutes earlier in Monaghan, an additional seven people were killed instantly or fatally injured by a fourth car bomb which had been delivered by a team from the Mid-Ulster UVF's Portadown unit.

[58] On the evening of 10 January 1975, gunmen kicked down the front door of the "safe" house Green was staying in and, finding him alone in the living room, immediately opened fire, shooting him six times in the head at close range.

Hanna apparently suffered from remorse following the 1974 Dublin bombings, as he is believed by Tiernan to have instructed one of the bombers, David Alexander Mulholland to drive the car which exploded in Parnell Street, where two infant girls were among those killed.

[68] Investigative journalist Paul Larkin, in his book A Very British Jihad: collusion, conspiracy, and cover-up in Northern Ireland maintained that Jackson, accompanied by Harris Boyle, had shot Hanna after learning that he had passed on information regarding the Dublin bombings.

[18] Jackson was also alleged by Kevin Dowling,[3] Joe Tiernan,[47] and the Pat Finucane Centre[14] to have led the UVF gang that carried out the Miami Showband ambush and massacre at Buskhill, outside Newry on 31 July 1975, which left band members Brian McCoy, Fran O'Toole and Tony Geraghty dead.

The minibus, driven by trumpeter Brian McCoy (a Protestant from Caledon, County Tyrone), had been flagged-down by UVF men wearing British Army uniforms at a bogus roadside military checkpoint on the main A1 road as the band was returning home to Dublin after a performance in Banbridge.

[73] Loyalist paramilitarism researcher Jeanne Griffin suggested that Jackson had planned the ambush as a means to eliminate Brian McCoy who had strong family connections to the Orange Order and the security forces.

[79] After his arrest, Jackson accused two Criminal Investigation Department (CID) Detective Constables, Norman Carlisle and Raymond Buchanan, of having physically assaulted him on 7 August 1975 while he had been in police custody at Bessbrook RUC Station.

[80] Although medical evidence presented at the trial of the accused Detective Constables raised the possibility that Jackson's injuries were self-inflicted, on 23 December 1975 a magistrate upheld the charge against the two CID men and they were fined £10 each.

[85] The Historical Enquiries Team (HET), which was set up by the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) to investigate some of the more controversial Troubles-related deaths, released their report on the Miami Showband killings to the victims' families in December 2011.

Culhane concluded that the latter had been one of a series of official photographs taken of Green's body the morning following his killing by Detective Sergeant William Stratford, who worked in the Garda Technical Bureau's Photography Section.

[89] Bassist Stephen Travers and saxophonist Des McAlea, the two bandmembers who survived the shootings, both testified in court that a British Army officer "with a crisp, clipped English accent" had overseen the operation.

[93] The 2006 Interim Report of Mr. Justice Barron's inquiry into the Dundalk bombing of 1975 (see below) concluded that Jackson was one of the suspected bombers "reliably said to have had relationships with British Intelligence and or RUC Special Branch officers".

Written by former diplomat Alistair Kerr, the book provides documentary evidence that shows Nairac as having been elsewhere at the time of the Dublin and Monaghan bombings, John Francis Green killing and Miami Showband ambush took place.

On 17 May 1974 he was on a months-long training course in England; 10 January 1975 there were three witnesses who placed him on temporary duty in Derry for a secret mission; and on 31 July 1975 at 4am he had started on a road journey from London to Scotland for a fishing holiday.

[99] The following month, on 4 January 1976, Jackson supposedly organised the "Glenanne gang"'s two coordinated sectarian attacks against the O'Dowd and Reavey families in County Armagh, leaving a total of five men dead and one injured.

This plan, which involved the killing of at least 30 schoolchildren and their teacher, was called off at the last minute by the UVF's Brigade Staff (Belfast leadership based on the Shankill Road), who considered it "morally unacceptable" and feared it would have led to a civil war.

[101] The findings noted in the HET Report on the Miami Showband killings revealed that on 19 May 1976, two fingerprints belonging to Jackson were discovered on the metal barrel of a home-made silencer constructed for a Luger pistol.

In his statement to Detective Superintendent Drew, Jackson claimed that one week prior to his arrest, two high-ranking RUC officers had tipped him off about his fingerprints having been found on the insulating tape wrapped around the silencer used with the Luger.

[102] The trial judge, Mr. Justice Murray, had said: "At the end of the day I find that the accused somehow touched the silencer, but the Crown evidence has left me completely in the dark as to whether he did that wittingly or unwittingly, willingly or unwillingly".

[36] He was implicated by Weir in the killing of Catholic chemist, William Strathearn,[108] who was shot at his home in Ahoghill, County Antrim after two men knocked on his door at 2.00 am on 19 April 1977 claiming to need medicine for a sick child.

[110]It is noted in the Barron Report that Northern Ireland's Lord Chief Justice Robert Lowry was aware of Jackson and Kerr's involvement in the Strathearn killing, and that they were not prosecuted for "operational reasons".

[36] Journalist Liam Clarke alleged that in early 1978, Weir and Jackson traveled to Castleblaney with the intention of kidnapping an IRA volunteer named Dessie O'Hare from a pub called The Spinning Wheel.

[115] A man whose description matched Jackson's was seen behaving suspiciously in the vicinity of Lurgan RUC barracks close to where three prominent republicans were later ambushed and shot by masked UVF gunmen after they left the police station on 7 March 1990.

[116] Designated by Weir the "most notorious paramilitary in Northern Ireland", at least 50 killings were directly attributed to Jackson, according to journalists Stephen Howe in the New Statesman,[6] and David McKittrick in his book Lost Lives.