Ticking Time-Bomb In Essex Cinema

Press, Volume CII, Issue 30103, 10 April 1963, Page 7

Ticking Time-Bomb In Essex Cinema

(N.ZT-A.-Reuter— Copyright)

LONDON, April 9.

An Essex cinema audience of 600. including 200 children, was evacuated tonight after police found a ticking time-bomb under a seat, the “Daily Express” i eported. The home-made bomb, packed in a cardboard shoe box, was timed to go oft at midnight. Police, acting on a telephoned warning, found the bomb at 6 o'clock, Reuter said. They had the cinema, the Odeon, in Barking, immediately cleared. Little more than a quarter of the 200 C seats were filled for the early evening show.

Firemen rushed to the cinema and laid hoses throughout the building, and the audience filed out without panic. Police cordoned off the street and blocked off traffic. Under Seat A police sergeant found the bomb under a seat in the back row upstairs. He threw rugs and blankets over it and carried it out to the cinema car park. Officers of the Royal Army Ordnance Corp undid the ticking parcel, and found in-

side a quantity of incendiary explosive wired to batteries and a clock mechanism. It was timed to go off at midnight. The bomb was rendered safe. Police then allowed the audience bach in to the cinema to see the rest of the film “40 Pounds of Trouble,” starring Tony Curtis. The “Daily Express” said the film had been stopped half-way through. The assistant manager went on the stage and asked the audience to leave "due to circumstances beyond our control.” The cinema was cleared, without trouble, in a few minutes. A cinema spokesman said whoever had left the bomb must have paid to enter the normal way, for there was no other way of getting in. An Army spokesman said if the mechanism had gone wrong the bomb might have exploded prematurely.

Radcliffe Repbrt.— The report of the Radcliffe Tribunal into Royal Navy security was handed to the Home Secretary (Mr Henry Brooke) yesterday, but is unlikely to be made public for at least another week. Even then much of it is expected to remain secret. —London. April 9.