PSNI dismissed claims loyalist Jim ‘Doris Day’ Gray was informant

The PSNI moved quickly to dispel rumours that the loyalist terrorist Jim Gray was an informant in the immediate aftermath of his death in 2005.

The former loyalist leader was shot dead in Belfast while awaiting trial on money laundering charges, having been forced out of the Ulster Defence Association (UDA) earlier that year.

Following his murder, assistant chief constable Sam Kinkaid contacted the Northern Ireland Office to say that the death had been “a settling of personal scores by some of his many enemies” according to a memo released by the national archives in London.

At the time of the death, there had been suggestions in the Daily Ireland, a newspaper in operation at the time, that Gray was an informant.

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“He [Kinkaid] was clearly frustrated by the Daily Ireland-led speculation about Gray being a police agent, and wanted to let us know that Gray was not an informant, had not been under police protection or surveillance and had been warned on release from prison about his safety, particularly if he returned to East Belfast,” said the memo.

Gray was a high-profile loyalist paramilitary and a brigadier in the UDA until he was forced out earlier in 2005. His bleach-blond hair, permanent tan and bright, garish clothes earned him the nicknames “the Brigadier of Bling” and “Doris Day”.