Hyde Park Memorial. Photograph by David Smith
John Anthony Downey, 61, of County Donegal, Ireland has been charged with the murder of four soldiers in the 1982 bombing in Hyde Park according to the Crown Prosecution Service (CPS).
Mr Downey was arrested on Monday for the killing four members of the Royal Household Cavalry: Roy John Bright, Dennis Richard Anthony Daly, Simon Andrew Tipper, and Geoffrey Vernon Young. He was also charged with intending to cause an explosion likely to endanger life.
Mr Downey is accused of planting a car bomb in Hyde Park, the first of two bombs that exploded on 20th July 1982, and which killed four men and seven horses, and injured a number of police officers and civilians. Less than two hours after this bomb, a second explosion in a Regent’s Park bandstand killed seven Royal Green Jackets bandsmen.
Mr Downey will appear at Westminster Magistrates’ Court on Wednesday afternoon.
In 1987 Northern Ireland electrician Gilbert “Danny” McNamee was charged with making the Hyde Park bomb and jailed for 25 years of which he served 12 before being released under the terms of the Good Friday peace deal. His conviction was then quashed in 1998 for being “unsafe”, but the judges said that this did not mean he was innocent of the crime.