GUILDFORD BOMBINGS

Press, Volume CXV, Issue 33778, 26 February 1975, Page 17

GUILDFORD BOMBINGS

Acquittal of woman

(N.Z.P.A.Reuter— Copyright) GUILDFORD (Surrey), February 25.

The prosecution yesterday dropped a murder charge against a mother of four children in connection with the bomb explosions that wrecked two bars and killed five people in Guildford last October. Anne Maguire, aged 39, collapsed, sobbing, to the floor when prosecuting counsel told the Bench that the Crown lacked sufficient evidence to support the charge. However, Maguire still faces another charge, of possessing nitroglycerin for unlawful purposes. The Bench, rejecting an application for bail, ordered her to be remanded in custody for a further seven days. Her acquittal on the murder count leaves four others, including another woman, still facing that charge. A report from Belfast says that the British Secretary of State for Northern Ireland (Mr Merlyn Rees) has announced that another 80 detainees will be freed, a move regarded by observers as a response to the I.R.A. Provisional Wing’s latest ceasefire declaration, a fortnight ago. In a statement issued today Mr Rees from his Stormont office, made it clear that if there was a genuine and sustained cessation of violence, he would eventually’ free all those suspects detained without trial.

Nearly 500 men and women — all but a dozen of them Republicans — are still detained in Northern Ireland.