Joseph Fenton

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.

Activity as an informer In the early 1980s Fenton agreed to help the IRA and moved explosives from an arms dump to a safe house. He was then approached by officers from the Royal Ulster Constabulary's Special Branch who said he could be prosecuted for the offence. 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. He started a new job as a salesman for an estate agent, and shortly after started his own estate agency named Ideal Homes based on the Falls Road. Special Branch bugged the houses using covert listening devices, enabling them to gather intelligence in order to try to prevent IRA attacks. 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. Fenton again came under suspicion in 1988 after four IRA members were arrested at a house in the Andersonstown area of Belfast which was being used as a mortar factory. Fenton's handlers in Special Branch stopped paying Fenton when the IRA stopped using properties provided by him, and by the end of 1988 Ideal Homes was facing closure. By then Fenton was working as a taxi driver to supplement his income, and in early 1989 Ideal Homes ceased trading when the offices were closed by Fenton's landlord due to unpaid rent. Fenton returned to Northern Ireland, with Hunter stating "Special Branch told me that if he came home he would be killed very quickly. They warned me he was a marked man and that it was dangerous to be associated with him and I passed this on to him, but he still went back". 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. The following day the IRA issued a statement that Fenton had been killed because he was a "British agent". In accordance with standard procedure the RUC denied Fenton had any connection with the police, while Fenton's father Patrick blamed the RUC for his son's death.