Judith Ward, I.R.A. terrorist

Press, Volume CXIV, Issue 33706, 2 December 1974, Page 14

Judith Ward, I.R.A. terrorist

(By

PETER DEELEY,

of the ’"Observer' Foreign News Service.)

LONDON. Like other revolutionary armies — the Viet Cong and the F.L.N. in Algeria, for example — the Irish Republican Army has found a special role for women in its terror-bombing campaign against the British, both in Northern Ireland and on the mainland of the United Kingdom. If confirmation of this! theory of the woman’s role’ in terrorism were ever I needed, it came when a tiny, frail young woman of 25, Judith Teresa Ward, was con-’ victed by an English Court of no fewer than 12 murders i —the result of a bomb placed last February in the back of a motor-coach carry-! ing soldiers and their families back home from week-end; leave in the north of England. Ward, born in England of j Anglo-Irish parents, was sen-! tenced to life imprisonment! for the mass murders and to; 30 years imprisonment for conspiracy to cause three; explosions on behalf of the I.R.A. Though the judge! made no recommendation about the precise length she will have to remain in prison, ; it is assumed in legal circles! that she will not be freed; before the 30 years are up; in the year 2004. Her story is tragic both)

i for herself and for those ! whom she helped to kill and maim. Having listened to the three-week-long case, and having observed Ward giving i evidence for five days, it became clear to me that she | is in a sense one of society’s “casualties”—an inadequate personality whose desire to achieve a role for herself led .her to taste the vicarious pleasures of life as a terrorist. She is also a complusive liar, as is evidenced by the many and conflicting I statements she made to I detectives. Even to the end she ; romanticised her life: she ’invented a husband for herself, an I.R.A. gunman who I was shot dead by British I troops two years ago. She I said she had married this man in Dublin, but records there show that this claim is totally false. Ward maintained that it was her Irish father’s hatred of British rule in Ulster thatlied her to sympathise with, the republican idea of “one: Ireland.” She joined the, iWomen’s Royal Army Corps} in England, but deserted to; Ireland and worked as a groom in some stables. There she fell in with the Sinn Fein, the political wing of the republican movement, and then with the I.R.A. it- ! self, and carried out missions such as driving cars filled with guns across the border from Dublin to Belfast. Then she was asked if she ! would like to do some jobs I for the I.R.A. in England. In

! London she was given the ! task of “sussing out” (spying lout the land) for bomb I attacks. On her information, j a bomb exploded at a j London railway station a year lago, injuring many people. On this occasion she had: ; played a part in carrying the ! bomb across London from i I the bomb-maker’s home to the man who was to plant it. Then she went north, and! teamed up in Manchester with a man and woman, Keiran McMorrow and Marlene Coyle, who are the two mo st-wanted people on Scotland Yard’s bomb list. She gave them information about the coaches taking soldiers back to camp from Manchester on Sunday nights, and even went with McMorrow to a house to collect the bomb. Typical of Ward’s many- . sided personality, she told I the police at times that she herself had put the bomb I in the back of the coach; on I other occasions she said Mc- ! Morrow and Coyle had done | the planting. At any rate, when the bomb blew up on a lonely motorway over the Pennine Hills, Ward was many miles away—in. of ail places, a! circus. She had joined the circus as a groom and had travelled to its winter quarters in the south of England. From the circus she returned to London to stay at an I.R.A. “safe house” and to carry out her final bomb mission, an attack on a high-

’ ranking soldiers’ college. ’Here again, many people were badly injured. But time was running out for Ward. Incredibly enough, she had fallen into the hands lof the soldiers in Northern I Ireland many times during | spot-checks, and in England I she had twice been : questioned by police. Each I time she had successfully | talked her way out of trouble, even though traces of gelignite were once found on her hands and I.R.A. pamphlets had been discovered on her.

However, on her way back to Ireland after the Army college attack, she was seen by two policemen in a shop doorway’ in Liverpool. Arrested, she was found to have a false driving licence.

Questioned, she appeared to be of no importance until suddenly she started talking about the coach bomb. Her days as a terrorist were over. But how had Ward been able to wander round England carrying out these attacks and continually slipping through the hands of the police? A Scotland Yard detective told me“ She was an insignificant little will-o’-the-wisp: the last person you would ever suspect. This is why the I.R.A. is so dangerous. You can’t trust anyone —not even a little girl who is crazy about horses.”—(O.F.N.S. copyright.)