British National Party leader Nick Griffin with some of the party’s supporters outside Burnley Police Station. (0674043)

THE killing of five colleagues in Northern Ireland was the spark for a former soldier to make a one-off payment to the National Front.

At the time the organisation was campaigning to get British troops out and impose the death penalty on members of the IRA so Carl Bougourd and other soldiers paid £6 to join.

Mr Bougourd had joined the army in 1981 as an 18-year-old. Between 1989 and 1991 he was with the Royal Hampshire Regiment in Londonderry. One company used to go to the city on the border side for a month at a time.

Another battalion used to man three vehicle checkpoints.

‘In October 1990, we were all called to the Buncrana vehicle checkpoint,’ he said. ‘When we got there we found the IRA had driven a car laden with explosives. When the boys had gone out to check, it had exploded, killing five of them and flattening the place.’

Mr Bougourd did not want to expand further on the horrific scene that greeted them, but it had made its mark. It was not long afterwards that he made a one-off payment to the National Front.