HOPE STREET SEIGE 1975

On the evening of Tuesday 8th of July 1975 an IRA active Service Unit made up of three men went into a Chinese restaurant in Manchester and during the meal there was a disturbance and the Police attended. One of the men produced a firearm and threatened a Police Inspector. They then fled the scene in a vehicle.

In the early hours of the following morning a vehicle with the men in went through a red light at the junction of Hope Street and Hardman Street and was stopped by Police Officers. Sgt Nick Doran and PC John Taylor came out of the nearby Hope Street Police station to assist the officers and as they got to the kerb, one of the IRA Unit went down on one knee took aim and fired at the two Police Officers. The bullet hit the ground in front of Sgt Doran and ricocheted into his face injuring him slightly. The men then ran off.

 Later that morning a team was put together to do the investigation made up of Regional Crime Squad Officers, Special Branch, Task Force, and divisional CID.
 
That afternoon a man went into Hope Street Police station and stated that he had been held prisoner in his house by the IRA. Detectives interviewed him and began making enquires.

The following day in the early hours of the morning and acting on information received, a team of Detectives met on “The Mons” car park in Bootle and proceeded through the entries to a house in Clare Road where they raided a house and arrested a number of people and took them to St Anne Street Police station.

As a result of those interviews and further information coming to light the Detectives decided to raid an address in Oxford Road Waterloo, leaving St Anne Street Police Station at about 4am . There were approximately two dozen Detectives on the raid and they were armed.

The first door that was kicked in belonged to a school teacher who pointed at the door across the hall. The officer Det Sgt Tommy Davies was about to kick that door in when shots rang out from inside the flat and the officer was wounded to his stomach and groin. The Police fired back and then removed the injured officer to safety. It later transpired that explosives were found at the scene too.

After a few hours the three IRA men gave themselves up and were taken to St Anne Street Police station under arrest. Accompanied by Royal Army Ordnance Corps ammunition technicians, the Police later took away 17 plastic bags of explosives, guns and ammunition and several boxes.

After a prolonged operation Det Sgt Davies was taken off the critical list and allowed to see his family.

Sgt. Nick Doran was shot on July 9th 1975. There’s a mention of it in a July 11th article in The Times Archive:

“From John Chartres Llverpool Shooting incidents in Liverpool yesterday morning and on Wednesday, and another in Manchester last week, all involving Irishmen and the wounding of police officers, are causing concern in the North- West of England, which so far has been spared any serious re- enactment of the conflict ‘in Northern Ireland. All police leave in Merseyside was cancelled last night. Early yesterday a party of 20 policemcn, some of them armed, surrounded a house in Oxford Road, Waterloo, near Liverpool. Three officers entered the house, and Det Sergeant Tom Davies was seriously wounded in the stomach by shots fired through a closed door on the first-floor landing. He was taken off the critical list in Walton hospital last night after a prolonged operation for the removal of bullets; and was allowed to see his wife. He has two children. Other police officers returned fire after Sergeant Davies fell, then entered the house and carried him to safety.Accompanied by Royal Army Ordnance Corps ammunition technicians, they later took away 17 plastic bags of explosives and several boxes. Three men were arrested. They were described yesterday by Det Chief Supt Thomas Whittlestone, head of Merseyside CID, as Irishmen. He said that a large quantity of explosives, firearms and ammunition were recovered from the house. The raid followed inquiries into the shooting early on Wednesday of Sergeant Nicholas Doran, aged 46, the inquiry desk sergeant at the metropolitan force’s Hope Street head. quarters, and the searching of several houses in the Liverpool area on Wednesday night Sergeant Doran was shot in the face and leg when he went to assist two officers interviewing the driver of a car stopped for crossing a red traffic light near the police station. The occupants of the car ran away. Sergeant Doran’s injury was not serious. In a separate incident yesterday, two men carrying sawn-off shotguns and a holdall walked to the door of O’Hare’s jewellery shop in Breck Road, Anfield, Liverpool, and were challenged by Mr Alfred Alcock, a security guard. One of the men fired at point-blank range and shot him dead. The men got away in a stolen car, which was later found abondoned, despite an attempt by a passer-by to block their route Mr Whittlestone, who was called from a news conference on the Waterloo shooting to investigate the Anfield murder, said there was nothing to connect the two incidents. Photograph, page 2 Arms found after two policemen are shot.”

Chris Kelly, Retd.