Roger Goad (explosives officer)

Goad was born in Jutogh, India. He was the son of Ronald William Goad and Daisy Bertha Goad (née Martin). Ronald Goad was a staff sergeant in the Royal Artillery.[2]

Goad enlisted in the Royal Army Ordnance Corps and worked his way up the ranks. He was a sergeant at the time he received the British Empire Medal in February 1958; and a warrant officer class 2 when he received a commission as lieutenant in February 1968.[3] He was promoted to captain two years later,[4] and retired from the army in August 1974.[5] He then became an explosives officer with the Metropolitan Police.

On the night of 29 August 1975, Joseph O'Connell and Eddie Butler, members of the IRA's Balcombe Street Gang placed a bomb in the doorway of a shoe shop in Kensington Church Street in London. The Balcombe Street Gang was responsible for the 1974–1975 terror campaign in London which included the Guildford pub bombings, the London Hilton bombing & the Woolwich pub bombing among many others.

Following a telephone tip-off, police officers discovered the device.[6] Goad was the senior bomb disposal expert on the scene. Goad attempted to defuse the bomb but it exploded, killing him instantly. It is unknown whether the bomb was detonated by its timer, or whether Goad triggered the bomb's anti-handling device[6]

He was a 40-year-old married man with two children.[7] His citation was published in the London Gazette of 1 October 1976.[8]

The four members of the IRA unit were captured four months later at the conclusion of the Balcombe Street siege.[9] After being convicted of a number of murders, the four were imprisoned for life, receiving a whole life tariff. They were released in 1999 as part of the Good Friday Agreement.[10]

• Kenneth Howorth (Killed trying to defuse an IRA bomb in Oxford Street in October 1981)
• List of British police officers killed in the line of duty