Marian Price: Old Bailey bomber walks free from court after receiving suspended sentence for terror offence
Old Bailey bomber Marian ‘Price’ McGlinchey walked free from court today after being given a suspended sentence for two terrorist offences.
McGlinchey previously admitted a charge of buying the mobile phone used by the Real IRA to claim responsibility for the murders of two British soldiers outside Massereene Army Barracks in March 2009.
The 59-year old, from Stockman’s Avenue in west Belfast, also admitted helping out at an Real IRA Easter commemoration in April 2011, during which she was pictured holding a statement for a masked man in a Londonderry cemetery.
Sentencing McGlinchey, Judge Gordon Kerr QC told the court McGlinchey had a “significant conviction for terrorist activity” in reference to two life sentences imposed in November 1974 for her role in the Old Bailey bombing. The Judge did, however, tell the court that pre-sentence reports presented to him suggested McGlinchey was “no longer interested in political activity”.
He also spoke of McGlinchey’s physical and psychiatric problems, saying sending her back to jail would result in “psychotic depression”.
McGlinchey pleaded guilty to providing property for the purposes of terrorism on March 8, 2009, and for this she was handed a 12-month prison sentence. She also admitted aiding and abetting, counselling and procuring the address made to encourage support for the Real IRA at the Easter Rising parade in Londonderry on April 25, 2011, for which she received an eight month sentence. Judge Kerr ordered that the sentences run concurrently, which he then suspended for three years.
