demanding a long-delayed operation.
DAVE WALKER and GEOFF BELL report.
and a friend saw a large piastic picked n up and nut it 10a dustbin. Janetthen wenthome.
bers of the CID called the 1 were brought to the CIE BETTE police said they were sending for a bomb disposal squad. Janet marched over to the from the bin and threw it at the assembled police. They dived with rotten fruit, tin cans, and other rubbish released from the * This incident was one of the rare opportunities the Ward family police, Against it must be set two suicide altempts by Janet. ConHE HEAR HAS TABACICED the family over the past three suicide soem surprisingly little. Want was returning from fretand DEMOICES CHERISH OTTE n 23 May 197 than 24 hours in Ireland, and this and her three male travelling police suspicious. For whatever EDDIE WARD ourside the iocal police station. Rita Ward made the headlines a couple of months ago when she occupied a bed at Northampton Hospital.
As a way reason. Rita was questioned for of the Special Branch.
According 1o Rita. and during a visit to her Northampton home in November 1975 by the London Special Branch, che was offered EIDO to inform on the IRA. She reports one "If you don't play ball your children. remarkably similar to the kind of threat made by Special Branch officers against Maurice Jor editor al the NUM paper, after his arrest atGrumm July 1975 Janet Ward is arrested, taken into a police car, and accused of stealing eye shadow. She explains soo was aiwen the eye shadow as a present. Eventwally the police release her saying another Janer Ward.
WENEMINT 1975 The family complain of noise from the bakery opposite their A melée develops in the between Rita, Janet, and Louise Ward and bakery workers. and she went to her aid. in Rite!
-We got the better of Rita The police arrive and say Rita will be charged murder. SIREC rievous bodily harm for which the three women are fined small sum of 125 each.
bakery later moves its premises because of further complaints about the noise lesel.
of 21 October 1975 Janet is arrestLed on a shoplifting charge. witness is produced says the police forced her to aigs a statement implicating Janet. In charge. The case is dismissed.
VOICETEST March 1976 Janet Is arrested and accused of telephoning a both bomb warning. She is taken to asked to make a voice cost. She women reverse the order in which charge Janet after the test, bu then the changed the order of the test Kita Is accused. The case is dropped November 1976 Yorkshire Louise are attacked after collectWing money for charity. Louise punches one of ber The police later call at the house and accuse Janet of grievous bodily barm. Louise protests that I was she who struck the blow and that anyway they were only defending themselves sill charted The case is cismssed in court.
January 1977 Janet gets into Ward row in a ballroom dance is over she is attacked house with a kaife.
DANCE hut hand and twists the Rita wards them. The assailant is then When Janet arrives home she Pater They arrive three bour tells her father, who phones the charge with attempted wounding with UNCICO LI April 1971 Sanet gets into a raw the at a social security office The arrested and taken to Menray wilful damage who later repeats the I found guilty of condition that her to be innocent they intend to ditiona charge women reveal they ha guilty of Janet and attackers. palice station.
She is charged with Janet is SURVEILLANCE is cut on ber the kaife tothis" and "Paddy that'.
Janet intent. She la feeling was working.
She is чаге not roaL. does Eddie try written ceived from as beaten unconscious. Sbe charco with the incoen at tha SS office and is later accused of - scratching Up the IKA' on the wall of her police Finally the police charge ber win a arcara or common bew public order for resistance she i up during her arrest. She in the diden, be sety of the pu ICEIEMISES Capital. order change. In other words she atTEsted Protesting right!
May 1977 Louise is charged after a similar incident at the S5 office. As with Janet, an adThe public order le inter added under common pattern is the same: the origisal charge, WHY DIE SURCEUCE SI July 1977 Innet is arrested or another bomb boax charge. She is taken to Campoel square drngged in she kicks at a window.
criminal bomb charge made. She is found guilty of the urticle By no means is this the whole these story, The Ward family say thes have been under regular surveil spotled a Special Brunch officer looking into their back garden. They say that throughnut the urnesis and the other rains the police have culled them trish Janet lost her job during one of T DEM the bomb hoax episodes hecause the accusation aroused in the factory where she relased how he was stringently questioned after a bomb explo By police standards the Wards compliant cit- Eniue Gormley's TRUEL ONE NECRET and hide his sympathy for the cause of Irish served nine years in the British Army. But none of chis is n has happened to the family.
They have protested — Rita has the SHICLE According to a letter Chey. rethe Home Office 'pending". None of the protests has resulted in any redress, and Socialist Workers Party hecause they felt the SWP was not taking It is all this and more which leads Eddie Ward to say: This country is a police state.
For many of us that mighr he an exagperation. For Lie Ward Arrow wages and profits. Now this may but it is essentially subsidiary to the main point that working class comes policies, no matter how seemingly fair, Mexible and gen COUs The Ties or the polc amounts to an exercise in respon sibility without power.
Without directive power over the sconomty. class to accent capitalist incomes policies deals a fatal blow to its ability to assert its own priorities struggle for command over real resources and Yes. Dave. That's JAMES FOX is a nice, well-meaning ournsist. He recentl wrote an article on the National Front in The Observer colour lack lustre, but pointed out hur there were fascists and racists in Then Fox made a botaily gratui coas attack on sections of the fa Jeft who fight the fascists on all fronts, lacluding a cheap smi meaningless jibe against the edi appeared a bit out of place in the We have now discovered that the "expert" who briefed Fox on matters mus none othe than former Sunday Times hack und now editor daily Newsline, Alex Mitchell. Quite bourgeois press attacks on the Socialise Workers Party Internalual Marine Groog te Justify his own secturiumism.
There is a cerlain irony in this.
WHERE HE CRACK on the Sunday Times in the six-
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drawing attention to cuts in the National Health Service it was an amusing, plucky exploit. But there is nothing humorous about the Wards' other story; a story whose details are frightening and whose implications terrify.
James Fox and thegoose