from Cardiff to Liverpool, arriving in Liverpool at approximately 11:30 p.m. on 13 February. She was planning to travel to Newry, Northern Ireland when arrested early the following day. Trial The trial of Judith Ward began before Mr Justice Waller at Wakefield Crown Court on 3 October 1974. She was charged with fifteen separate offences consisting of twelve charges of murder relating to the fatalities of the M62 coach bombing, causing an explosion likely to endanger life and property with regards to this particular incident, and two separate, non-fatal IRA attacks at Euston railway station and the Latimer National Defence College committed in September 1973 and February 1974 respectively. Ward pleaded not guilty to all charges. Initial arraignment hearings were held on this date. Although Ward's confessions had been coerced and distorted by some members of the investigating team prior to her trial, all the content within her confessions was presented by the prosecution as being "backed up by overwhelming scientific evidence". Prosecutor John Cobb QC described Ward as an IRA agent, active in "major operations" on mainland Britain. The prosecution's case was almost completely based on her own claims of culpability (which Ward had retracted prior to her trial), weak circumstantial evidence and what would later be described as "demonstrably wrong" scientific evidence delivered by four witnesses who testified on behalf of the prosecution, which had sourced from the Griess tests conducted by Dr Skuse and others. To support the prosecution's contentions, several witnesses testified as to verbal statements Ward had made indicating her sympathies with the concept of Irish republicanism. A member of the Metropolitan Police Service was also called to testify as to statements Ward had made following her August 1973 arrest for vagrancy in London in which she had claimed to police to have "carried out assignments" for the IRA, but was not a member of the organisation. On 23 October, Ward repeated her disprovable claims to have been married to the deceased Michael McVerry. Ward's defence attorney, Andrew Rankin, QC, refuted the prosecution contentions, insisting the forensic evidence presented could be easily explained as sourcing from cross-contamination and describing his client as a "female Walter Mitty" character, for whom fantasy had become reality, who was perhaps seeking notoriety in Irish folklore. Referencing the "rambling, incoherent and improbable" statements Ward had made to police, Rankin outlined the numerous inconsistencies and alterations she had made which indicated