11th March 1974: 'Anti-IRA spies' break out of jail

Two self-proclaimed British Government spies have escaped from a top-security prison in Ireland where they were serving sentences for armed robbery.

It is another embarrassment for the authorities at Mountjoy Prison in Dublin coming just five months after a helicopter plucked three leading IRA members from Mountjoy's exercise yard.
The latest escapees, brothers Kenneth and Keith Littlejohn, were jailed last year for a £67,000 robbery at a Dublin bank - the biggest to date in Irish history.
During their trial the Littlejohns claimed they were working for the British Government against the IRA. ...

1989: IRA bombs Tern Hill barracks

Police are hunting two IRA bombers who attacked an army barracks at Tern Hill in Shropshire.
Fifty members of the 2nd Battalion the Parachute Regiment escaped injury when sentry Lance Corporal Alan Norris spotted two men acting suspiciously in the early hours of this morning.

He raised the alarm and the barracks was evacuated shortly before two bombs went off.The bombers escaped in a stolen car, which was found earlier this evening about 10 miles from the barracks.

Lance Corporal Norris was on patrol duty at about 0300 hours this morning when he spotted the terrorists.
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_{By Vincent Kearney BBC News NI Home Affairs Correspondent}

Tim Francis still clearly recalls the moment a car bomb blew him off his feet and across a street in Londonderry. He walked away unscathed, but that day in 1974 marked the end of his dream of a career in the British army.

"My clear recollection of that time is actually flying through the air and thinking to myself, 'I'm number four', because we'd lost three guys previously," he said. "I think that was the final straw on my Army career.

Tim Francis left his home in Wales to join the Army when he was just 16 as an apprentice surveyor. Three years later, he was sent to Northern Ireland as a member of the Royal Artillery Regiment. During his first tour, he was based in Newtownhamilton in south Armagh. "Initially when we went there we went to shops, we could buy cigarettes, we could buy whatever we needed from local shops," he said. "But gradually that became more of a problem and we were no longer welcome.

"During his four months there, the teenage soldier was in an armoured truck, a Humber Pig, that hit a landmine. "There was a big flash, bang, we were lifted off the ground," he recalled. "We seemed to be in the air for quite a while, but it couldn't have been very long, and then hit the ground with a big bang. Incredibly, none of the soldiers inside were injured.

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Tucked away for almost 40 years in a steel-lined room at police HQ, an envelope held the key to eventually solving Alfredo Fusco’s 1973 murder. Inside that envelope, reference FP7/4, was a white card with fingerprints belonging to Mr Fusco’s killer obtained at the time from the crime scene. The prints of a palm, left forefinger and a left thumb, were taken from a door to a store where Mr Fusco had tried to escape. The prints were lifted on to sellotape and put onto a card. But in 1973 fingerprint technology was much less sophisticated than today. Then it was a manual process of comparing a crime scene print with a fingerprint. The only way investigations would have proceeded on fingerprint evidence was on the basis of comparing the prints with a suspect or suspects. Up until 2009, when the Historical Enquiries Team (HET) reviewed the case, Clarke was never a suspect. His fingerprints were not even on file until he murdered Margaret O’Neill (58) two years after killing Mr Fusco. ...

The Northern Ireland civil rights campaigner and former Westminster MP, Bernadette McAliskey, has been shot by gunmen who burst into her home at Coalisland in County Tyrone. The three men shot Mrs McAliskey, formerly known as Bernadette Devlin, in the chest, arm and thigh as she went to wake up one of her three children. Her husband, Michael, was also shot twice at point blank range. Three men are now being questioned by police. They were arrested by members of the Parachute Regiment, who were on patrol nearby when they heard the shots. The McAliskeys were flown by army helicopter to hospital in Belfast, where their condition is said to be serious, but not life-threatening. ...

Ten Protestant men have been shot dead as they were returning home from work in a mini-bus in Northern Ireland. The attack happened on the Whitecross to Bessbrook Road in South Armagh this evening as the men, all textile workers, returned from a factory six miles from Bessbrook. The mini-bus in which they were travelling was ambushed by up to a dozen attackers. It is believed the massacre was in revenge for the murders of five Catholics in Lurgan and Whitecross last night. Initial reports suggest the passengers were forced to line up outside their vehicle, after which they were systematically gunned down. Detectives found more than 100 spent cartridges at the scene. One survivor remains critically ill in hospital with bullet wounds to his lungs and a further passenger, a Catholic, was ordered away before the shooting. Nine of the dead men were from the village of Bessbrook - the bus driver came from Mount Norris. Johnston Chapman had to identify the bodies of his two nephews, who died in the attack. He said: "They were just lying there like dogs, blood everywhere." ...

Three armed IRA men on the run from police have burst into a flat in central London and taken at least two people hostage.

Officers have now sealed off the corner of Dorset Square and Balcombe Street, in Marylebone, after a car chase through the West End during which shots were fired.
The gunmen are believed to be members of an IRA hit squad which has been behind a number of attacks in the capital and home counties over the past few months.
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Thirty-eight prisoners have escaped from a high-security jail in Northern Ireland. One prison officer has been killed and another seriously injured during the mass break-out of Republican inmates from the Maze jail near Lisburn. Ten of the prisoners - who were all from Block H7 - were recaptured in the first few hours, but the remainder are still on the run. Security forces mounted the biggest search operation Northern Ireland has ever seen within minutes of the escape. ...

The Queen has led the nation in mourning as the body of her husband's uncle, Lord Mountbatten, was buried after a day of pageantry in London. The earl - who was murdered nine days ago by the IRA during a fishing trip in County Sligo - had planned much of the funeral himself. Members of Britain's armed forces were joined by representatives of Burma, India, the United States, France and Canada in escorting the naval gun carriage carrying his body. The procession from Wellington barracks, near Buckingham Palace, to Westminster Abbey was accompanied by the sound of bells and the solemn brass of Royal Marine bands. ...

At least 18 soldiers have been killed in two booby-trap bomb attacks at Warrenpoint, South Down, close to the border with the Irish Republic. It is the highest death toll suffered by the British Army in a single incident since it arrived in Northern Ireland to restore order a decade ago. The IRA are believed to be behind the attack. It came only hours after the Queen's cousin, Lord Louis Mountbatten, was killed in an IRA bomb attack in Donegal Bay in the Irish Republic. ...

At least 27 people are feared dead in the worst paramilitary bombing since the start of the Northern Ireland conflict three decades ago. The blast in the market town of Omagh, County Tyrone, at around 1500 BST on Saturday, left more than 100 people injured or maimed. People who survived the car bomb blast in a busy shopping area of the town have been describing scenes of carnage with the dead and dying strewn across the street. Police received a telephone warning approximately 40 minutes before the...

Eight soldiers on ceremonial duty have been killed in two IRA bomb blasts in central London. The first blast, in Hyde Park, killed two soldiers and injured 23 others and the second explosion, in Regents Park, less than two hours later killed six soldiers instantly and injured a further 24 people.
The IRA admitted carrying out the attacks in a statement echoing Margaret Thatcher's declaration of war on Argentina over the disputed Falklands.
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Riots have broken out in Londonderry after it was revealed Bernadette Devlin had been arrested. The Mid-Ulster MP was to address a meeting in Bogside before handing herself in to police after she lost an appeal against her December conviction. Miss Devlin, 23, was sentenced to six-months in jail for her part in the Bogside riots in 1969. She appealed against the decision but the Northern Ireland Court of Appeal rejected her application earlier today. Speaking just before her arrest Miss Devlin said: "I was involved with people in defending their area. They were justified in defending themselves and I believe I was justified in assisting their defence." ...

The official wing of the IRA in Northern Ireland has announced a ceasefire, reserving the right of self-defence against attacks by the British Army and sectarian groups.
However the Provisional IRA dismissed the truce as having "little effect" on the situation.
The Northern Ireland Secretary, William Whitelaw, welcomed the move and a spokesperson said it was "a step in the right direction".
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