Labour leader Jeremy Corbyn ‘aided campaign to free an IRA assassin who served 20 years for trying to kill a cop’
JEREMY Corbyn aided a campaign to free an IRA assassin who served 20 years for trying to kill a cop, it has emerged.
Paul Norney was given a life sentence in 1976 for attempted murder after shooting Inspector Emlyn Watkins in Manchester.
He was 17 at the time and part of an IRA “killer squad” plotting atrocities.
But Mr Corbyn, then just a Labour MP, appeared with Norney’s wife Briege at a meeting in his Islington constituency in 1995.
Norney was released four years later under the terms of the Good Friday Agreement before returning to jail in 2013 for 20 months for assaulting his estranged wife.
News of Mr Corbyn aiding the IRA man’s campaign came after it was revealed spy chiefs and the Foreign Office fear for national security if the Labour leader became PM.
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Mr Watkins’ nephew Christopher Maidment, 61, said: “I’m not happy that a man in his position was helping the IRA gunman who shot my uncle.”
“I didn’t think much of Corbyn before but I think even less of him now.
“He’s not the first to want people who commit atrocities to get away without being properly punished.”
He added: “My uncle was a hero - he was given the George medal for bravery after being shot and that was passed to me when he died ten years ago.
“I don’t think he’d be very happy that the Labour Leader tried to get the man who shot him out of jail.”
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A Labour Party spokesperson said: “Jeremy was never a supporter of the IRA, and has always worked for peace and respect for human rights.
“He has also spoken about how the peace process in Northern Ireland has been a model for other countries trying to bring divided communities together on the basis of recognising different traditions.
“As Prime Minister, he will do everything necessary to keep our people safe.”
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