Sidney Street siege victims honoured

The shooting of three policemen, which led to the notorious siege of Sidney Street, was remembered today as a memorial to the fallen officers was unveiled.

The three died exactly 100 years ago when Latvian anarchists shot their way out of a jeweller's in Houndsditch.

Two weeks later the revolutionaries were found holed up in Sidney Street, Stepney and, after a seven-hour battle with police, the house burnt down.

Winston Churchill, then Home Secretary, who was there, refused to let firemen extinguish the blaze. Two bodies were found.

The memorial in Houndsditch to Sergeants Robert Bentley and Charles Tucker, and Pc Walter Choat, came as the gun that fired the fatal shots went on display for the first time at the Museum of London Docklands.