I don't really know where to start when it comes to the astonishing story of Maria Gatland and the IRA.

Things developed very quickly from the initial email I received from content editor Andy this morning through to our decision to publish this afternoon.

There are many questions surrounding the story - not least why, if you have been sentenced to death by a terrorist organisation, you would willingly choose to take up a high-profile position in London's biggest borough.

Our biggest decision was whether to break the story online or to sit on it until Friday in the hope nobody else picked up on it.

In the end, it was a fairly easy call to make. As you can read in the lead story, a very unsubtle hint was dropped at last night's meeting of the full council.

We weren't the only members of the press in attendance, and no journalist worth their salt would have been able to resist following up such a tantalising morsel.