Five await sentencing for bomb campaign plot

Five members of a Real IRA terror cell operating on the British mainland were being sentenced today for their parts in plotting a bombing campaign.

Three of the men were convicted yesterday at the Old Bailey while two others admitted the charge.

The first strike focused on the BBC Television centre in March 2001, then in Ealing Broadway, west London, in August the same year and finally in Smallbrook, Queensway, Birmingham in November.

Brothers Robert Hulme, 23, and Aiden Hulme, 25, together with Noel Maguire, 34, had denied conspiring to cause explosions between January 1 and November 15, 2001.

James McCormack, 34, from Co Louth, and John Hannan, 19, from Newtown Butler, Co Fermanagh, admitted the charge.

Hannan was 17 at the time and is thought to be one of the youngest terrorists to appear before a British court.

As a result of the campaign, several people were injured and millions of pounds of damage was caused.

The bombers were discovered during an undercover Customs and Excise investigation into a fuel tax fiddle.

The men were using a diesel washing gang based in remote farmhouses in Yorkshire as a cover.

The gang removed red dye from cheaper-taxed agricultural diesel and sold it on to dealers at normal diesel rates for profit.

The Customs men alerted the Anti-Terrorist branch. When armed officers moved in, they discovered another car bomb at a farm in West Yorkshire almost “ready to go“.

Each of the three bomb attacks had identical features. They were all left in vehicles, used home-made explosive mixtures and had similar timing mechanisms.

The same code word was used.

Although there was no direct evidence that any of the defendants physically set the bombs, there was a wealth of evidence suggesting they were part of the team responsible.

They were also associated with the two self-confessed conspirators, Hannan and McCormack.

The jury considered the verdicts for a week after a trial which lasted 10 weeks.

Yesterday, police warned that rebel Irish republican terrorists remained an immediate threat to the UK.

Although the Real IRA cell which plotted the bomb blasts at three mainland centres during 2001 has been smashed, officers feared other extreme republican groups could still be lying dormant.