THE IRA gang finally captured in the Balcombe Street siege in London in 1975 had put together a list of dozens of targets of senior British figures and high-profile institutions, including Madame Tussauds, according to official papers released yesterday.
The list, some of it still blacked out nearly 40 years on, was shown to prime minister Harold Wilson just days after the four men were arrested in the north London flat.
The four – Martin O’Connell, Edward Butler, Harry Duggan and Hugh Doherty – were sentenced to life in jail in February 1977, but were freed in 1999 under the terms of the Belfast Agreement.
Police raided a flat in Milton Grove, Stoke Newington, which the men had occupied and drew up the group’s proposed “target list” drawn from papers “scattered throughout the flat”. The list included four events due to take place in London within weeks of the men’s discovery and arrest.
The documents released by the UK National Archives in Kew included a list of dozens of locations, including military barracks, cultural institutions such as Madame Tussauds, the British Museum and the Tate Gallery.
Sewage treatment stations, Hackney gasworks, the BBC’s transmitter in Crystal Palace in south London and the Law Courts were also identified.
Responding to Wilson’s use of the phrase “death list”, Home Office official William Innes said “it would be wrong to talk about it as such. It is a compilation of a vast amount of low-grade intelligence which has yet to be assessed and evaluated. No significance or meaning can be attached to any of the names on the list”, adding that it should not “be discussed or quoted in any way” that might jeopardise the prosecution.
The list of individuals identified was not released, following a decision by the British government to hold the names back for up to a further 10 years under a Freedom of Information Act exemption.
Those identified were not told at the time that they had been listed: “The police will use their judgment whether any on the list need warning, or protection,” the official told Downing Street.
A number of press cuttings were also found, including an interview with chef Egon Ronay about one of his restaurants in Walton Street and a list of those who attended a memorial service for ex-Metropolitan Police commissioner, Sir John Waldron.
Just 23 of the 86 pages originally filed have been released. The pages not released include: 23 listing MPs, lords and other civilians; nine listing police officers and 35 detailing named military officers.
Undercover police were ordered on to the streets of London to catch the group, and they were eventually cornered after they had been spotted shooting at a Mayfair restaurant they had bombed three weeks before.
They were convicted of eight killings, including the co-founder of the Guinness Book of Records, Ross McWhirter in Enfield, after he had offered a £50,000 reward for their capture.
During their trial, they objected to the fact that they had not been charged with the Woolwich and Guildford pub bombings in 1974, saying that innocent people had been wrongly convicted. The Guildford Four and Maguire Seven remained in prison. One of them, Giuseppe Conlon, died in jail and the rest were not released until 15 years later when an appeal court rule their convictions were unsafe.