Page 132 - Once a copper 10 03 2020

The Brighton hotel bombing was a Provisional Irish
12 October 1984 Republican Army (IRA) assassination attempt
Brighton hotel against the top tier of the British government that

bombing occurred on 12 October 1984 at the Grand
Brighton Hotel in Brighton, England.

A long-delay time bomb was planted in the hotel by IRA
member Patrick Magee, with the purpose of killing Prime Minister Margaret
Thatcher and her cabinet, who were staying at the hotel for the Conservative
Party conference.

Although Margaret Thatcher narrowly escaped the blast, five people
connected with the Conservative Party were killed, including a sitting
Conservative MP, and 31 were injured.

Patrick Magee stayed in the hotel under the pseudonym Roy Walsh during
the weekend of 14–17 September 1984. During his stay, he planted the bomb
under the bath in his room, number 629, one floor above Thatcher's suite for
the conference.

The device was fitted with a long-delay timer made from videocassette
recorder components and a Memo Park Timer safety device. IRA mole Sean
O'Callaghan claimed that 20 lb (9 kg) of Frangex (gelignite) was used.

The device was described as a "small bomb by IRA standards" by a
contemporary news report and may have avoided detection by sniffer dogs
by being wrapped in cling film to mask the smell.

The bomb detonated at approximately 2:54 am (BST) on 12 October. The
midsection of the building collapsed into the basement, leaving a gaping
hole in the hotel's facade. Firemen said that many lives were likely saved
because the well-built Victorian hotel remained standing.

Thatcher was still awake at the time working on her conference speech for
the next day in her suite. The blast badly damaged her suite's bathroom but
left its sitting room and bedroom untouched. She and her husband Denis
escaped injury. She changed her clothes and was led out through the
wreckage along with her husband and her friend and aide Cynthia Crawford
and driven to a Brighton police station. At about 4:00 am, as Thatcher left the
police station, she gave an impromptu interview to the BBC's John Cole
saying that the conference would go on as usual.

The IRA claimed responsibility and said that it would try again.

“Mrs. Thatcher will now realise that Britain cannot occupy our country and torture our
prisoners and shoot our people in their own streets and get away with it. Today we were
unlucky, but remember we only have to be lucky once. You will have to be lucky always. Page132
Give Ireland peace and there will be no more war”.