Resort towns ‘clean’

Press, 4 July 1985, Page 10

Resort towns ‘clean’

NZPA-Reuter London The police yesterday gave the all-clear to 12 English seaside resorts listed as targets for a summer bomb campaign by the Irish Republican Army. A hectic week-long search of hotels in the holiday towns had turned up no hidden time-bombs and the London police chief, Sir Kenneth Newman, declared the crisis over. But Sir Kenneth, appointed by the Prime Minister, Mrs Margaret Thatcher, to take charge of the bomb hunt, said that the possibility of a random retaliatory attack could not be ruled out and that the continued vigilance by the public was needed. The police fell on a suspected I.R.A. gang after finding a time-bomb in a London hotel near Buckingham Palace nearly two weeks ago. That led them to an I.R.A. plot to plant bombs in the 12 popular resorts to go off at the height of the tourist season

this month. In London, a magistrate remanded three people in custody over an alleged plot to unleash a bomb blitz. Police marksmen covered the courthouse for the hearing, which took the number of people remanded in London on guerrilla-related charges to 10. All were remanded to July 11. Five people facing a bomb plot charge were sent for trial yesterday. A woman doctor was allowed conditional bail. The other four accused were remanded in custody. At the Liverpool Magistrates Court a barrister, Michael Mansfield, made submissions on behalf of Dr Maire O’Shea, aged 64, a retired consultant psychiatrist, of Birmingham. A stipendiary magistrate, Norman Wootton, decided that there was a case to answer. They are charged with conspiring to cause an explosion to endanger life between New Year’s Day and Christmas Eve, 1984.