Gordon Kerr
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Brigadier James Gordon Kerr OBE QGM (born c.1948) is a senior British Army officer and former military attaché who was the head of the controversial Force Research Unit in Northern Ireland.
Kerr was born in Aberdeen. His military career began when he was commissioned into the Gordon Highlanders on a Special Regular Commission shortly after leaving university in 1970. He served in Cyprus before his first posting to Northern Ireland in 1972, where he worked as an undercover intelligence officer. Between 1972 and 1987 he worked in a variety of posts related to army intelligence in Northern Ireland, Berlin, and at army training centres in Britain. He transferred to a Regular Commission in 1974 and transferred to the Intelligence Corps in 1977. He was promoted Lieutenant in 1971, Captain in 1974, Major in 1980, Lieutenant-Colonel in 1987, Colonel in 1993, and Brigadier in 1998.
In 1987 Kerr became head of the Force Research Unit, a controversial army unit which ran undercover agents in paramilitary organisations. The FRU is alleged to have colluded with Loyalist paramilitaries in the assassination of a number of civilians, most notoriously the killing of Belfast solicitor Pat Finucane in 1989. He held this post until 1991 when, due to the threat of IRA assassination, he was taken out of Northern Ireland and reassigned. The unit was subsequently renamed the Force Reconnaissance Unit.
After leaving the FRU he became the military attaché for the British government in Beijing. While he was there, his name was published by the Sunday Herald as a consequence of the investigation into the FRU by the Stevens Inquiry.
In February 2003, Kerr was recalled from Beijing for two weeks leave, before being sent to Iraq to lead the Special Reconnaissance Regiment. He retired in 2004.
