the September 1973 Euston bombing. Ward also claimed to have conducted a string of operational activities for the IRA in both Belfast and mainland Britain in 1973 and 1974, to have been married to a deceased IRA member named Michael McVerry, and to have borne a child to another IRA member. However, although a supporter of Sinn Féin and likely knowing several individuals involved in IRA activity, she had no firm connections with the IRA. The IRA would subsequently issue a statement confirming this fact. The following month, Ward was shown a written copy of the statement she had provided on 16 February. She emphatically denied sections of the statement, insisting several claims she had supposedly made had been fabricated by investigators, although she did concede she had made some false claims regarding transporting what she believed to be explosives in a direct response to pressure from a Detective Superintendent Moffatt. On 11 and 18 June—after Ward had been formally charged with various atrocities including the M62 coach bombing and without the knowledge of her solicitor—Oldfield again questioned Ward. The records of these interviews were removed from police files and transferred to the Metropolitan Police Service for security reasons. Early the following month, Ward attempted suicide by cutting her wrist shortly after being diagnosed with severe depression and on 24 August, a night orderly officer observed her attempting to injure her wrists by incessantly rubbing them against her bed straps. Suspect background Ward had been born in Stockport, England, on 10 January 1949. She was the second of five children born to an English mother and an Irish father. Contemporary records indicate she was a lonely child who was raised in a broken home. Upon leaving school in 1965, Ward trained as a riding instructor and stable hand in Wiltshire, England before obtaining employment at a riding school in Ravensdale, County Louth, Ireland, close to the town of Dundalk. In the years between leaving school and her arrest, she had frequently divided her time between Ravensdale, Wiltshire, and her home town of Stockport, which she had first returned to from Dundalk in October 1970. In February 1971, Ward enlisted in the Women's Royal Army Corps (WRAC). Her basic training saw Ward spend approximately four months at Catterick Garrison before she was transferred to Aldershot, Hampshire on 5 August 1971 to serve as a communications centre operator. Two months later, Ward