Evil bigot who lured Catholic mum to her death is behind anti-migrant campaign

The Sunday World can reveal that Michelle Thompson, who was interviewed on BBC TV two weeks ago at the Belvoir anti-immigrant demonstration, is the same woman who “laughed’’ after watching tragic Anne Marie Smyth being beaten and strangled to death in an east Belfast bedroom three decades ago.

In an attempt to throw detectives off the scent, her killers — some of whom had close links to the UDA and the UVF — dumped her body on spare ground in the Ravenhill area.

And in a technique reminiscent of the notorious Shankill Butchers murder gang, Anne Marie’s throat was hacked back to her spinal cord with a kitchen knife.

Two weeks ago, Michelle Thompson spoke freely to a BBC Newsline reporter, with her name appearing along the bottom of the TV screen.

She said the Belvoir protest was to prevent “scumbags” coming into the area. However, the PSNI confirmed it was treating signs and placards carried by protesters as a hate crime.

But we can reveal that Thompson hides a dark and horrific secret linked to one of the most savage sectarian murders of the Troubles.

In February 1992, she met and befriended Anne Marie, a 26-year-old mum of two from Armagh, in the Hillfoot Glentoran Social Club on the Castelreagh Road in east Belfast.

Anne Marie had come to east Belfast to listen to her favourite band. And after meeting Thompson in the social club, she confided in her that she was a Catholic.

Lying through her teeth, Thompson told her not to worry as she too was a Catholic. In an attempt to ease her fears, she even pretended her name was Bernadette.

But Thompson also confided in another female friend that she was going persuade this “Taig” to come back to a nearby house in Cregagh Street where she would “give her a good hiding”.

Anne Marie enjoyed dancing with her new-found friends and later, Thompson invited her back to a friend’s house in Cregagh Street. Thompson told her that she could stay the night and return to Armagh in the morning. Anne Marie agreed to go.

In the living room, Anne Marie produced a cassette by singer Bryan Adams. Her favourite song, she said, was (Everything I Do) I Do It for You. They all had more drinks together and some of them smoked cannabis. Thompson chatted to Anne Marie and the Catholic woman’s initial caution was soon forgotten.

In a pre-arranged move, a UVF man who owned the house arrived with other men. Anne Marie was taken to an upstairs bedroom where she was beaten and strangled. At one stage, Thompson turned down the volume of the Bryan Adams music in order to better hear what was going on upstairs. And as the banging noises continued, Thompson told the other women that the men were “probably doing her knees in”.

Thompson and one of the other women even went upstairs to witness for themselves what was going on. They saw Anne Marie’s lifeless and bloodied body lying on the floor, next to a double bed.

An eye-witness later told a murder trial that when they came back downstairs, Thompson laughed, while the second woman had turned white. An estate car arrived soon afterwards and the Armagh woman’s body, which had been rolled up in a carpet, was bundled into the back. As it was being bumped down the stairs, one of her killers was heard to joke: “She’s full again the night.”

Anne Marie’s dead body was taken to Ballarat Street off the Ravenhill Road, where her throat was cut back to the spinal cord. She was then dumped on waste ground.

Today, the Sunday World can also reveal the savage mutilation of Anne Marie’s body was done by Catholic-hating UVF killer Jimmy Manners, who was gunned down in a Newtownards bar in 2001.

During a police interview, Manners deliberately “verballed” himself when he asked investigating detectives: “Is it possible to murder a dead body?”

This week, a detective who had worked on the case said: “We knew it was Manners all along. But because he had said that, we couldn’t legally use it against him.”

While 32-year-old Manners and four of the other men involved went to jail for life after being convicted of murder, Michelle Thompson — who had originally been charged with murder — had charges reduced to conspiring to imprison and helping to clean up the murder scene the following day. She received a suspended sentence.

Some of the guilty men later had their sentences reduced on appeal.

But when we caught up with Thompson earlier this week and requested an interview about why she lured Anne Marie to her horrific death, the normally chatty Thompson appeared to dry up.

With a stunned look on her face, she said: “I don’t want to talk about that. I don’t want to talk about anything. It happened a long time ago and I’ve nothing to say.”

Thompson then grabbed her Corgi and made off in the direction of her home.

But today we can also reveal how the slashing of Anne Marie’s throat initially confused experienced detectives and it very nearly led to her killers evading justice.

Police had managed to track down Anne Marie’s movements to the house in Cregagh Street, which was owned by 31-year-old UVF man Samuel Cooke.

Cops had also learned that Graham Carlo Bingham, a 25-year-old man from Rathcoole in Newtownabbey, had been hiding out in east Belfast following his involvement in the UDA beating of victims’ campaigner Raymond McCord, who later became an outspoken critic of loyalist paramilitaries when the UVF beat his son to death. Bingham too had been in the terraced house in Cregagh Street.

Two other men were also suspected of involvement in Anne Marie’s murder. But as the property had been thoroughly cleaned and redecorated, there was no evidence linking Anne Marie to the place where she died.

A breakthrough came though when Cheryl Kelly — one of the young women who had been present in the house — turned up at a police station accompanied by her mother.

Riddled with a mixture of guilt and disgust, she told the police all she knew about the murder of Anne Marie.

One of the things Kelly remembered was Anne Marie wanting the others to hear Bryan Adams singing.

When detectives returned to Cregagh Street, they found the tape was still in the cassette player. Her fingerprints were on it.

It was also the same player Thompson had turned down in order to hear the sound of Anne Marie’s death moans.

Cheryl Kelly had also said that Michelle Thompson told her the day after the murder that she had found photographs of children in Anne Marie’s handbag.

Thompson also admitted to her friend that she had smoked the dead woman’s cigarettes.