Vigil at bomber’s bedside

Press, Volume CXVI, Issue 34104, 17 March 1976, Page 21

Vigil at bomber’s bedside

LONDON, March 16. Intense police activity continued throughout the night in the East End of London as Scotland Yard’s antiterrorist squad sought information about the badly-wounded Irishman who is believed to have Diown up an underground train and killed its driver. Armed detectives are waiting at the bedside of the man, who shot himself after killing the train-driver and wounding another man who had attempted to apprehend him. The Irishman is in the intensive care unit at Queen Mary’s Hospital, Stratford, and so far detectives have been unable to speak to him, but from documents found on him they have been able to check on an address in the East End, and they have a name: Frank McGuinness. Whether this is the

patient’s own name has not been established. Papers found on the wounded man are said by Commander Roy Habershon, the head of the squad, to indicate a positive Irish Republican Army connection. It is thought that the bomb had been destined for a target in the West End of London, and that it went off prematurely. Before shooting himself, the gunman shouted: “You English bastards.” The police are now trying to ascertain whether a bomb factory exists in the East End. After an explosion in Stanhope Gardens, Kensington, last month, they found such a factory at a house on Clapham Common, in southeast London. The bomb last night exploded as the train was moving off from West Ham station. The blast tore out the inside of the front coach, and doors and parts of the roof were scattered over several hundred yards. The bomb may have been destined for a “soft target”

and may herald the start I of the I.R.A.’s publicised) spring offensive. h The police believe that the, bomber realised what was I happening, and hurled the) carrier-bag containing the 51b bomb to one end of aj carriage of a Metropolitan | Line train. It exploded, injuring him and nine other people. The man then attempted to escape up the railway embankment, pursued by the train-driver, a West Indian, Mr Julius Stephen, aged 34, j and a post office engineer, ; Mr Peter Chalk, aged 24. ) Mr Stephen, a married j man, was shot dead by the fugitive, and Mr Chalk was , < Escargot’s Chinois j To the tourist in France, ( snails — and especially escargots de bourgogne — are < a rewarding taste adventure. > But the snails now sold in ' French restaurants are often < neither French, nor snails, t According to the daily newspaper “Le Nouvel Alsacien,” < Chinese molluscs and ach- s atina Formosa are now < being served as snails in a t number of restaurants. An-i chatina are similar to snails, f but taste slightly different < and have a tougher skin. They cost a third of the 1 French delicacy’s price. — t Strasbourg. <

badly wounded in the chest. I He is severely, but not critiically ill in hospital.