Sir Patrick Jeremy Walker, KCB (25 February 1932 – 13 October 2021) was a British civil servant who was Director General (DG) of

MI5 MI5 ( Military Intelligence, Section 5), officially the Security Service, is the United Kingdom's domestic counter-intelligence and security agency and is part of its intelligence machinery alongside the Secret Intelligence Service (MI6), Gov ...

, the United Kingdom's internal security service, from 1988 to 1992.

Early life and education

Walker was the only surviving son of civil servant Reginald Plumer Walker and his wife, Gladys. He was born at Bungsai Hospital in

Kuala Lumpur Kuala Lumpur (KL), officially the Federal Territory of Kuala Lumpur, is the capital city and a Federal Territories of Malaysia, federal territory of Malaysia. It is the largest city in the country, covering an area of with a census population ...

, Malaysia, where his parents were married in 1929. The Walkers had once owned considerable lands in northern Nottinghamshire around Mattersey and Lound, but, according to his research, lost it all "thanks to a combination of incompetence and the agricultural slump" at the end of the 19th century. His paternal grandfather, Plumer Cosby Walker, worked for the Great Northern Railway. After three years in Malaysia, the family moved to

Nairobi Nairobi is the Capital city, capital and largest city of Kenya. The city lies in the south-central part of Kenya, at an elevation of . The name is derived from the Maasai language, Maasai phrase , which translates to 'place of cool waters', a ...

, Kenya, where his father was chief accountant of East African Railways. At age 13, Walker left Kenya to be educated at

The King's School, Canterbury The King's School is a public school in Canterbury, Kent, England. It is a member of the Headmasters' and Headmistresses' Conference and the Eton Group. It is Britain's oldest public school and is considered to be the oldest continuously op ...

, followed by

Trinity College, Oxford Trinity College (full name: The College of the Holy and Undivided Trinity in the University of Oxford, of the foundation of Sir Thomas Pope (Knight)) is a Colleges of the University of Oxford, constituent college of the University of Oxford in E ...

Career

From 1956 to 1962, Walker served in the colonial administration in Uganda as part of the Foreign Service. He joined MI5 from the Ugandan

Colonial Service The Colonial Service, also known as His/Her Majesty's Colonial Service and replaced in 1954 by Her Majesty's Overseas Civil Service (HMOCS), was the British government service that administered most of Britain's overseas possessions, under the aut ...

in 1963. Walker worked extensively in

counter-terrorism Counterterrorism (alternatively spelled: counter-terrorism), also known as anti-terrorism, relates to the practices, military tactics, techniques, and strategies that governments, law enforcement, businesses, and intelligence agencies use to co ...

. At the behest of Sir Maurice Oldfield (MI5) and incoming RUC Chief Constable John Hermon, in January 1980 he was asked to review the practices and organisation of intelligence gathering by the

Royal Ulster Constabulary The Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) was the police force in Northern Ireland from 1922 to 2001. It was founded on 1 June 1922 as a successor to the Royal Irish Constabulary (RIC) Richard Doherty, ''The Thin Green Line – The History of the ...

in Northern Ireland. Recommendations from the report were implemented via a memo issued in February 1981. The report established primacy of

RUC Special Branch RUC Special Branch was the Special Branch of the Royal Ulster Constabulary, and was heavily involved in the British state effort during the Troubles, especially against the Provisional Irish Republican Army The Provisional Irish Republica ...

over all areas of intelligence gathering, and the Branch would also absorb weapons and firearms analysis. All intelligence contacts were to be offered to Special Branch, and all proposed arrests were to be cleared with the Branch. As a "basic rule"

Criminal Investigation Department The Criminal Investigation Department (CID) is the branch of a police force to which most plainclothes criminal investigation, detectives belong in the United Kingdom and many Commonwealth of Nations, Commonwealth nations. A force's CID is disti ...

(CID) officers were not to discuss a Special Branch operation or investigation with other members of CID without express permission from the Branch. It is claimed by critics that the Walker Report cemented the position of

as a force within a force, beyond normal checks and balances; established a policy of primacy of intelligence requirements over criminal investigation; led to a perception of informants as an untouchable "protected species"; and to an acceptance of cover-up and fabrication of evidence, such as that revealed after the so-called " shoot-to-kill" killings by police in 1982, that formed the subject of the Stalker inquiry.Richard Norton-Taylor and Nick Hopkins
Security service told RUC that it could put spying on terrorists ahead of solving crime
''

The Guardian ''The Guardian'' is a British daily newspaper. It was founded in Manchester in 1821 as ''The Manchester Guardian'' and changed its name in 1959, followed by a move to London. Along with its sister paper, ''The Guardian Weekly'', ''The Guardi ...

'', 14 June 2001Ian Cobain and Owen Bowcott
RUC told to put intelligence before arrests, reveals secret MI5 report
''

'', 26 June 2018 The implementing memo became known in 2001; the underlying report itself was declassified in June 2018. Walker went on to be head of the counter-terrorism department. He was

Director General of MI5 __NOTOC__ The Director General of the Security Service is the head of the Security Service (commonly known as MI5), the United Kingdom's internal counter-intelligence and security agency. The Director General is assisted by a Deputy Director Gen ...

from January 1988 to February 1992. His term of office saw the statutory basis of MI5 established for the first time through the

Security Service Act 1989 The Security Service Act 1989 (c. 5) is an Act of the United Kingdom Parliament. The Act established a statutory basis of the UK Security Service (MI5) for the first time. Prior to the Act, successive UK governments had denied the existence of ...

and the end of the

Cold War The Cold War was a period of global Geopolitics, geopolitical rivalry between the United States (US) and the Soviet Union (USSR) and their respective allies, the capitalist Western Bloc and communist Eastern Bloc, which lasted from 1947 unt ...

. He was knighted in the 1990 Birthday Honours.

Personal life

Walker, whose father was a Presbyterian and his mother an Anglican, was baptised in the

Presbyterian Church of England The Presbyterian Church of England was a late-19th-century and 20th-century Presbyterianism, Presbyterian denomination in England. The church's origins lay in the 1876 merger of the English congregations of the chiefly Scottish United Presbyterian ...

York York is a cathedral city in North Yorkshire, England, with Roman Britain, Roman origins, sited at the confluence of the rivers River Ouse, Yorkshire, Ouse and River Foss, Foss. It has many historic buildings and other structures, such as a Yor ...

at a few months old. He was confirmed as a member of the

Church of England The Church of England (C of E) is the State religion#State churches, established List of Christian denominations, Christian church in England and the Crown Dependencies. It is the mother church of the Anglicanism, Anglican Christian tradition, ...

by Ven. Geoffrey Fisher,

Archbishop of Canterbury The archbishop of Canterbury is the senior bishop and a principal leader of the Church of England, the Primus inter pares, ceremonial head of the worldwide Anglican Communion and the bishop of the diocese of Canterbury. The first archbishop ...

, at 16 years old while attending school. He would convert to Roman Catholicism two years after marrying his wife, Susan Hastings, in April 1955, making him the first Roman Catholic to serve as DG of MI5. They had three children and nine grandchildren. In 2009, Walker wrote an autobiography of his days in Africa, ''Towards Independence in Africa: A District Officer in Uganda at the End of Empire''. He died on 13 October 2021, at the age of 89.

Bibliography

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Walker, Patrick 1932 births 2021 deaths People from Kuala Lumpur Alumni of Trinity College, Oxford Colonial Service officers Directors General of MI5 Knights Commander of the Order of the Bath People educated at The King's School, Canterbury People from the Federated Malay States Uganda Protectorate people Converts to Roman Catholicism from Anglicanism British Roman Catholics