IAN GOW, JULY 30 1990

Ian Gow, the Tory MP for Eastbourne, was murdered by the Provisional IRA in a car bomb attack outside his farmhouse in East Sussex.

One of Margaret Thatcher’s most trusted aides, Mr Gow was a former treasury minister and a staunch defender of Ulster Unionism.

A Semtex bomb was planted under his Austin Montego by members of the IRA, and it exploded as he started to pull out of his drive.

Mr Gow, who was 53, died from his injuries 10 minutes later. Just weeks before, he had said at a drinks party that he “certainly did not” check underneath his car and was at “less risk” than serving police officers.

Although Sussex Police regularly patrolled the area around his house, Mr Gow rejected their offer of round-the-clock protection.

His widow, Dame Jane Whiteley, said in 2017 that it was “unjust and unfair” that nobody had been convicted in relation to the “premeditated, cold-blooded” assassination of her husband.

The year before his murder, Mr Gow’s name had been found on a hit-list of 100 public figures at a bomb-making factory in south London.