Belfast Pride March founder hailed as hero was accused of pimping out schoolgirl - Former Rape Crisis Centre chief brands McCombe ‘a complete fraud’ and ‘a sexual predator’.
An activist hailed as a champion of LGBTQIA+ rights after dying last week was a sexual predator and a danger to both men and women, a leading counselling expert said.
>Former soldier Tina McCombe – who was previously known as Thomas Alison McCombe - once pleaded guilty to procuring a teenage schoolgirl McCombe met by chance to work in a brothel.
>McCombe had once been a sibling-in-law of the late UUP leader David Trimble.
>Eileen Calder, who had been a director with the Belfast Rape Crisis Centre for more than 20 years, revealed she had counselled McCombe, who was a founding member of the hugely successful Belfast Pride Week.
>And she said she eventually concluded that McCombe was, in fact, a danger to men as well as women.
>Ms Calder said: “McCombe called at our offices in the city centre and said he would like to undergo a course of counselling.
>“Realising he was a man dressed in female clothes, I told him that the Rape Crisis Centre was a strictly female-only zone, but he insisted that as he intended to become a woman, she should be able to avail of our counselling services.
>“Tina, as he wanted to be known, was very insistent and eventually I agreed to comply with his request. He explained how he had been brought up as a man and he had even served in the British army and travelled abroad into war zones.
>“But he also said that despite his macho exterior, he knew that deep inside he was a woman. Of course, he never mentioned his involvement in the brothel in east Belfast, where women were exploited on a daily basis.
>“As time passed, McCombe confessed to me that although he had undergone medical procedures, he was in fact incapable of ever becoming a woman.
>“He also told me that despite having a number of relationships with men, he eventually realised he was a lesbian,” said Ms Calder.
>“I eventually came to the conclusion that Thomas Tina McCombe was a sexual predator and an exploiter of vulnerable young men and women. And I also felt he was a danger to males as well as females.”
>Ms Calder added: “In short, he was a complete fraud as a so-called champion of minority rights.”
>Last week, Belfast Pride paid tribute to McCombe in a statement after the death was announced.
>“It is with deep sadness that we have learned of the passing of Tina McCombe,” it read.
>“Tina played an important role in our community, helping organise and marching in Belfast’s first Pride Parade in 1991, before later serving as Co-Chair of Belfast Pride in 1999.
>“She was a truly wonderful person who always made time for others and was a passionate advocate for the LGBTQIA+ community across Northern Ireland.”
>However, Sunday World was present at Belfast Magistrates Court when Thomas Alison McCombe pleaded guilty and the court heard how McCombe met the schoolgirl on a bus and before it reached its destination in the city centre. McCombe had then talked her into working as a prostitute.
>Standing alongside McCombe that day were two accomplices, a man originally the Shankill area, as well as a woman.
The other two pleaded not guilty and McCombe’s case was set aside for sentencing when their trial concluded.
>But months later, the Public Prosecution Service withdrew the charges against McCombe’s co-accused. And around a year later, the PPS brought McCombe back to court, where the procurement charge – to which McCombe had already pleaded guilty – was also withdrawn.
>A magistrate said McCombe was free to go. But everyone present in court that day – knew McCombe was guilty.
>And later, an investigation revealed McCombe had been in partnership with the other two, running a brothel in the Woodstock area of east Belfast.
>A hand-picked team of RUC officers based at Willowfield Station on the Woodstock Road a ran an undercover operation with 24-hour surveillance on the property, which was an end-terraced house in a quiet cul-de-sac near My Lady’s Road.
>Police had been tipped off by locals living in the respectable loyalist area, who were appalled at what was going on in their midst. And after raiding the premises, McCombe and the two others were arrested.
>For around eight years, McCombe – before he became Tina – was the brother-in-law of David Trimble, who was to become the leader of the Ulster Unionist Party.
>Trimble also signed the Good Friday Agreement and as a result was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with SDLP leader John Hume.
>In an interview, McCombe appeared to blame his mother for mixed-up emotions experienced during childhood in north Down.
>“My mother wanted a baby girl,” McCombe said. “That’s why she gave me a girl’s middle name and dressed me up in frocks.”
>But McCombe was detained by police in Donaghadee on a number of occasions after parents complained of ‘flashing’ at schoolchildren.
>Some teachers took to spending their dinner hour in the playground with the children as a result.
>Eventually, McCombe signed up for the army.
>In 1975, McCombe was injured in a bomb blast and was discharged from the army on medical grounds. After leaving the army, McCombe worked as a mercenary in a number of wars around the South African borders. And it later emerged other soldiers refused to serve alongside McCombe.
>Scars on McCombe’s right arm served as a reminder of three suicide attempts.
>And McCombe later landed in serious trouble in Dublin after being accused and later jailed over stabbing a man in a gay sauna.