Paul "Dingus" Magee (born 30 January 1948) is a former volunteer in the Belfast Brigade of the Provisional Irish Republican Army (IRA) who escaped during his 1981 trial for killing a member of the Special Air Service (SAS) in 1980.
[3] In the late 1970s and early 1980s he was part of a four-man active service unit, along with Joe Doherty and Angelo Fusco, nicknamed the "M60 gang" due to their use of an M60 general purpose machine gun.
[4][5] On 9 April 1980 the unit lured the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC) into an ambush on Stewartstown Road, killing Constable Stephen Magill and wounding two others.
[6] On 2 May the unit were planning another attack and had taken over a house on Antrim Road, when an eight-man patrol from the British Army's Special Air Service arrived in plain clothes, after being alerted by the RUC.
[7] As the SAS members at the front of the house exited the car the IRA unit opened fire with the M60 machine gun from an upstairs window, hitting Captain Herbert Westmacott in the head and shoulder.
[7][8] The remaining SAS members at the front of the house, armed with Colt Commando automatic rifles, submachine guns and Browning pistols, returned fire but were forced to withdraw.
Eleven days after the escape he appeared in public at the Wolfe Tone commemoration in Bodenstown, County Kildare, where troops from the Irish Army and the Garda's Special Branch attempted to arrest him, but failed after the crowd threw missiles and lay down in the road blocking access.
[2] Shortly before his release from prison in 1989 Magee was served with an extradition warrant, and he started a legal battle to avoid being returned to Northern Ireland.
[2][13] In October 1991 the Supreme Court in Dublin ordered his return to Northern Ireland to serve his sentence for the murder of Captain Westmacott, but Magee had jumped bail and a warrant was issued for his arrest.
[20] Magee had refused to accept visits from his wife and five children for two years, prompting Sinn Féin to accuse the British government of maintaining "a worsening regime that is damaging physically and psychologically".
[21] On 5 May 1998 Magee was repatriated to the Republic of Ireland to serve the remainder of his sentence in Portlaoise Prison, along with Liam Quinn and the members of the Balcombe Street Gang.