The IRA General Headquarters realised this mistake. Instead, they decided that instead of sending over a large 10-person ASU for just one day of spectacular bombing, they would use smaller sleeper cells of three or four volunteers to carry out several bombings over a number of months. [10] The commissioner says that having consulted maps he now realises that before going to Dorset Square, where the siege later unfolded, he arrived in the area around the junction of Park Road and Rossmore Road. There was "a tremendous amount of running around" and shots being fired "and the sergeant and I decided this was a very bad place to be". Harry Duggan was one of four children of Mr and Mrs Harry Duggan, of Feakle, Co Clare. He was born in Kilburn, London, before returning to Co Clare with the family when he was three. He left school at 14 and became a carpenter in a local factory. He became active in Sinn Fein when the troubles started in the late 1960s and in 1972 his family was told he was "killed in action". His father searched a graveyard in Scarriff, Co Clare, after gardai had said his son had been buried secretly. Tributes paid to former MPS commissioner". Police Professional. 13 November 2017 . Retrieved 13 November 2017.

They followed the IRA men's car to Alpha Close, near Regent's Park, where the terrorists abandoned it. The officers then began following them on foot. Suspecting that Mr Purnell and Mr McVeigh were police, the IRA men opened fire. With a courage that earned him the George medal, Mr Purnell followed the men south-east down Park Road and west into Rossmore Road, an elevated street that crosses the railway lines from Marylebone station. Born in Kent, Imbert was educated at the Harvey Grammar School in Folkestone, spent his National Service in the Royal Air Force Police and worked for a short time with Kent County Council, before joining the Metropolitan Police in 1953 at Bow Street Police Station. The Balcombe Street siege was an incident in December 1975. The four members of what became known as the Balcombe Street gang: Joe O’Connell, Edward Butler, Harry Duggan and Hugh Doherty, were part of an IRA Active Service Unit. In 1996, O'Connell wrote from jail to Sinn Fein's An Phoblacht newspaper, declaring the IRA ceasefire to be "the most stupid, blinkered and ill-conceived decision ever made by a revolutionary body".Building on the reforms to the Met implemented by his predecessor, Sir Kenneth Newman, Imbert began his own set of reforms called the PLUS program, aiming to improve the corporate image and quality of service of the Met. The programme saw the Met renamed from the "Metropolitan Police Force" to the "Metropolitan Police Service", the name it has retained to this day. [6] In addition, a Statement of Common Purpose and Values was devised. The hostages John Matthews, 54, and his wife Sheila, 53, have been taken to University College Hospital where a spokesman said they were "shaken and weak" but doing well.

The four men went to 22b Balcombe Street in Marylebone, taking its two residents, middle-aged married couple John and Sheila Matthews, hostage in their front room. The men declared that they were members of the 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 the chief police negotiator. [9] Max Vernon, who was later chief negotiator of the Iranian Embassy siege, was another of the police negotiators. [10] Nineteen people were killed in the ASU's campaign: 16 from bombings and three in shootings. Six of the dead were British military personnel, one was a London police officer, one was a member of the bomb squad, and 11 were civilians. One reporter who was covering the events for radio was Jon Snow, now a Channel 4 newsreader. “I think we all fell victim to Balcombe Street fever,” he recalled. The Allsop Arms is a traditional English pub located on Gloucester Place. The pub features a cozy interior with a wood-burning fireplace, leather banquettes, and a range of classic pub games like darts and pool.He was the Lord Lieutenant of Greater London from 1998 until 2008. He was made a life peer as Baron Imbert, of New Romney in the County of Kent in 1999, sitting as a crossbencher. A breakthrough in the stand-off at the couple's west London home at Marylebone came at 1355 GMT today when the gang's spokesman "Tom" shouted to police they wanted to negotiate.

In addition to Mr Purnell and Mr McVeigh, all the officers in the Granada and three of the SPG officers were decorated for their bravery under fire.Cheers and applause broke out as relief replaced fear on the estate which police had evacuated and filled with officers. The Holland Park explosion was only one of 40 bombs set off in the capital by the Provisional IRA in a 14 month period over 1974-75. The campaign left 35 people dead and many more injured. The IRA Active Service Unit responsible for the Professors’s death were Edward Butler, Hugh Doherty, Martin O’Connell and Harry Duggan all of whom were in their early twenties and all from the Irish Republic. Balcombe Street gang were sentenced to more than 600 years in jail between them". The Irish Times . Retrieved 4 November 2021.