1) "Mr. Amlot said Maguire came to visit his mother in Blackpool in
(January) 1982 and asked O'Connor about Weeton army camp in Fylde... O'Connor
told the jury that Maguire, whom he had known since he was 15, asked him if he
was interested in 'helping the cause'. (O'Connor) said: 'I had an idea what he
meant. I agreed to help.'"
2) "O'Connor, the main prosecution witness against Maguire, told the jury
that Maguire, described by the prosecution as a Provisional IRA intelligence
officer and a go between, drew him into the plot (to bomb the camp or the
nearby public house)."
3) "(Thomas Maguire said) O'Connor, who talked of his Irish patriotism,
told him that the Weeton camp was a base for Northern Ireland and that the SAS
and RUC trained there.....We were in the habit of walking and O'Connor asked if
I would like to go for a walk past the camp. 'I didn't ask to go there,' said
Maguire. O'Connor pointed out the armoury and the officers' mess....On the way
back they went for a drink at the Eagle and Child....O'Connor asked Maguire if
he could put him in touch with someone in the Republican movement in Dublin.
'He thought the fact that the RUC (and SAS) were training in the camp... should
be exposed,' Maguire said."
4) "O'Connor had spent two weeks in Weeton hospital for medical treatment
in the 1950's while serving in the Royal Air Force (the Weeton camp being an
RAF unit at the time)."
5) (After the walk around Weeton camp) "Maguire returned to Dublin and
sent O'Connor a coded note in which he called the camp 'Judy'. O'Connor was
later arrested for shoplifting. The note, which he had been asked to burn, was
in his jacket pocket. While going to the police station, he hid it under the
seat of a police van. It was later discovered and kept by the police."
6) "During the next year, the court heard, Maguire sent four more coded
letters about developments in the plot...In one alleged letter O'Connor was
told there was a delay but he was advised 'be patient, it is the hallmark of a
good 'un.'"
7) "Mr. Maguire agreed that he and Mr. O'Connor had walked around the camp
in February, 1982, and that he later sent Mr. O'Connor a letter about watching
the camp – which he called 'Judy' – at night. Mr. O'Connor claimed that he
became disturbed at what was developing when he got the second letter in
October (1982). In January, 1983, Mr. O'Connor took the second letter to the
police."
8) "Raymond O'Connor... went to the police when 'he could no longer bear
what was going on'...But it had taken him almost a year to disclose the plan.
9)
"O'Connor denied that he had initiated the investigation of the
camp.....he also denied the suggestion that he had become entangled with the
special branch much earlier than he had admitted. He insisted that he had
agreed to help Maguire 'to see where it would lead' and 'just to string him
along.'"
10) "An IRA informer who became a police spy told an Old Bailey jury
yesterday that a special branch detective put so much pressure on him that he
constantly lied....O'Connor, the chief prosecution witness, said that Detective
Sergeant Wrench of the Blackpool special branch was 'on his back' nearly every
day after he went to the police in (end) January 1983 with his suspicions about
the IRA plot to blow up the Weeton army camp and then the army pub nearby.
'They wanted results and wanted them fast...’”
11) "Earlier in February, 1983, O'Connor made his first visit to Dublin,
meeting IRA members. Later that month, on his second visit, he met Brendan
Swords, known as 'Charlie’, a man he described as a 'Gerry Adams look-a-like',
a man called 'Danny’, another with a 'pot belly', and (Patrick) Murray. They
discussed the plan to bomb the pub."
12) "O'Connor said that Maguire had arranged a meeting for him with the
IRA chief of staff in Dublin and had put him on a bus to travel to that
meeting. He said that when he told police later about his meeting with senior
IRA men he was told: 'At last you have got to the top.'"
13) "On April 12 (O'Connor) was contacted by telephone and met Murray, and
a man called 'the mechanic’, who was Magee. (He)...arranged for them to visit
the Eagle and Child, got them a flat, hired a car and inquired about a garage.
O'Connor said the plan was for the mechanic to build a bomb in the garage,
place it in an old van and park the van outside the pub...(his) part in the
planned attack...involved him in reserving a parking space outside the pub with
a hired Cortina. The car would then be moved, and a van containing the bomb
would be parked in its place. The bombers would escape in the Cortina, he
said."
14) "Ten days later Magee and Murray told him they suspected that they
were being followed and disappeared for a weekend....On April 25th they
reappeared, when the plan to bomb the pub was almost complete, O'Connor was
told to get an old van, where the bomb – assembled by Magee – would be placed."
15) "On April 26th Magee and Murray, in (the O'Connor hired Cortina) car,
became suspicious and they sped away to Preston followed by four police
surveillance cars....(abandoning) their car at Preston railway station with the
doors open, lights on, the windscreen wipers going and their luggage in the
boot."
16) "Joseph Calvey, aged 38, and James Murray, 26, both building workers
originally from Rosturk, County Mayo but now resident in Lancashire, were
accused of driving Magee and Patrick Murray to Newport, South Wales, from
Preston hours after they narrowly evaded police. Magee and Patrick Murray,
brother of James Murray and Mr. Calvey's cousin, made their way from Wales by
ferry back to Ireland, alleged prosecuting counsel Mr. John Nutting." – The Guardian, Thursday 16.10.86.
Note: The Joseph Calvey and James Murray trial reports will be added (as
Section 8) on completion of the Weeton presentation.
