Brave Strathclyde Police officers aught the most wanted man in UK

servative Party conference, shook nation to its core. It almost killed rgaret Thatcher and took out the ish Cabinet.

Five prominent members of the nservative Party died including riel Maclean, wife of the chairman he Scottish Conservatives, nald Maclean, and others were ously injured. The tragic bombing and hunt for the killer will k in people’s minds I had forgotten that tland was the climax he story and I think a f others have as well.” ory, who grew up in lin, added: “It had been of the biggest manhunts ritish history, spanning eight nths and involving multiple lligence agencies and police forces, it all came down to a handful of ttish detectives having to make sions in real time over the course few hours. t was extraordinary – the whole of the investigation fell into the lap trathclyde Police.” month after the blast, which left former secretary of state for trade and industry Norman Tebbit’s wife Margaret paralysed, the police had a suspect – an Englishman called Roy Walsh. The hunt was on for “Roy Walsh”, which turned out to be an alias for Patrick Magee, whose fingerprints were uncovered on a registration card for the room where the bomb was planted.

As far as the police were concerned, he had gone off the radar. The authorities decided to continue the ma n hu nt w i t hout releasing Magee’s name. Rory said: “Eight months after the bombing, a police surveillance team purely by chance spotted Magee at Carlisle station with another IRA man, Peter Sherry, who they had been tailing.

“They asked their bosses if they should make an arrest but were told to follow the pair after they boarded a train to Glasgow. The surveillance team – who hadn’t been told Magee was a suspect for the Brighton bombing – were waiting for him when he arrived in the city. “In retrospect it was maybe a good thing that Strathclyde Police did not know they were tailing the country’s most wanted man as the pressure might have affected their decision making. Most of the raiding party had no idea what Magee looked like, whether he was armed, which flat in the block he had entered or who else was behind the door.

“It was the element of surprise which clinched it for them. They were eating dinner at the back of the flat so didn’t hear the commotion of police on the stairs and Magee was expecting the landlord to come for the rent so was quite happy to open the door.

“The stars aligned for what turned out to be very clean and effective arrests of not only Magee and Sherry but also their fellow IRA members Gerard McDonnell, Martina Anderson and Ella O’Dwyer, without a shot fired.

“They also found the list of 16 hotels and B&Bs which the cell were planning on bombing and evidence that pointed to the flat in Shawlands, where Magee had been making the bombs and stashed an arsenal of weapons.”

Rory, who has worked in Belfast, Baghdad, Africa, South America and LA as a reporter, said it took the police