Three years after surviving the multiple murder bid which claimed Sam Marshall's life, Colin was the centre of another conspiracy by state forces 'to take him out'. This time, the conspiracy involved framing Colin on a murder conviction rather than kill him. A convicted unionist gun runner, Lindsay Robb, revealed that the Six County police force had colluded with the UVF to fabricate evidence against Colin The plot was different but the question remains - were many of the key protagonists the same?
According to Lindsay Robb, the RUC approached senior UVF figures after the IRA killing of a former UDR soldier John Lyness in 1993. The unionist murder gang was asked to supply a 'clean' witness who could claim that Colin was seen in the vicinity at the time of the shooting.
The police officers involved implied if the unionist murder gang could do this for them, they would 'go easy' on investigations into UVF activity in the Mid Ulster area - even though the same organisation was actively engaged in a ruthless campaign of murder directed against Catholics at the time.
Lindsay Robb
Lindsay Robb claims he was approached by a senior member of the Mid Ulster UVF and asked to give evidence, for which he was paid, against Colin. Robb subsequently appeared, screened from public view, as a key prosecution witness at Colin's trial.
Colin was convicted in 1996, but in a dramatic turn of events, the conviction was quashed when the UVF's 'clean' witness was caught gun running in Scotland. Lindsay Robb was convicted and Colin was released when details of the extraordinary conspiracy between the RUC and the UVF emerged.
Following his release, Colin publicly said to the media, "if the RUC were prepared to collude with loyalists to take me out of circulation in 1993, then it is reasonable to assume that members of the British crown forces were involved in the UVF's attempt to take me out in 1990. This was not the first or last time the RUC, or some other section of the British crown forces, were in contact with loyalist paramilitaries.
Colin spent a total of three years unjustly imprisoned as a result of this British conspiracy. It was only as a result of a long and hard fought campaign by his friends and family that Colin was finally released in 1996.
His family are determined that this time around he shouldn't have to spend any additional years of imprisonment as a result of yet another British state conspiracy against him.
Colin's brother Paul said, "Colin's history is a history of injustice, conspiracy, collusion and breaches of human rights. These practices were not acceptable in the 1990's, they should not be acceptable today".
Paul went on to call for all those who campaigned for Colin's release in the 1990's to support the family's present campaign.
Campaign poster from the '90's Colin's daughter Caitríona campaigning
for her father's release in the '90s