Conservative Cabinet Member in Croydon resigns over IRA past

The Croydon Advertiser reports that Cllr Maria Gatland has resigned as the Cabinet Member for Children and Young People after it emerged that she had links with the IRA in the 1970s. It says: "Maria Gatland was sentenced to death after revealing her role in the IRA Provisional in a kiss and tell book published in the 1970s. This morning, she admitted she was the author of To Take Arms: My Year with the IRA Provisional in 1972 under her maiden name, Maria McGuire." Her Conservative colleagues are dismayed as they were unaware of her past although as she fled to England in 1972 in fear of her life it is understandable why she may have been secretive about it but it is difficult to be entirely clear over what happened as she is not commenting. She has been suspended from the Conservative group pending an investigation.