Balcombe Street Siege
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The Balcombe Street Siege was an incident involving members of the Provisional IRA (Irish Republican Army) and the London Metropolitan Police lasting from December 6 to December 12, 1975.
It started as a running gun battle through the city as police pursued Hugh Doherty, Martin O'Connell, Eddie Butler and Harry Duggan through the streets of London after they had attacked Scotts Restaurant in Mayfair for the second time. The attack was the latest in a campaign of bombings and shootings throughout London that lasted for more than a year, resulting in the deaths of numerous people and included the assassination of Guinness Book of Records co-founder, TV personality and right-wing political activist Ross McWhirter, who had offered a £50,000 reward to anyone willing to inform the security forces of IRA activity. The four men ended up in a flat at 22b Balcombe Street in Marylebone, taking its two residents, John and Sheila Matthews, hostage.
The men declared that they were members of the Provisional IRA and demanded a plane to fly both them and their hostages to Ireland. Scotland Yard refused, creating a six-day standoff between the men and the police. Peter Imbert, later Commissioner of the Metropolitan Police, was chief negotiator with the gang members.
The men surrendered after several days of negotiations with the Metropolitan Police during which time SAS teams had been deployed and the suspects came to the realisation that they would not be granted their demand for a plane to Dublin. The suspects and the hostages were unharmed. The whole ordeal was watched by millions on television.
The four are still known as the Balcombe Street Gang. Doherty, O'Connell, Butler and Duggan were each given multiple life sentences in 1977 for various terrorist crimes, as well as McWhirter's murder, and were later subjected each to a whole life tariff, the only terrorist prisoners to do so. However, they were released in 1999 as part of the Good Friday Agreement.
During their trial they instructed their lawyers to "draw attention to the fact that four totally innocent people were serving massive sentences" for three bombings in Woolwich and Guildford. Despite admitting to the police that they were in fact responsible, they were never charged with these offences, and the Guildford Four and Maguire Seven, all wrongfully convicted, remained in prison for years afterwards. One died in jail, and the rest were eventually released after it emerged that police had beaten confessions out of them and suppressed information that would have proved their innocence.
