CCTV footage of suspected Omagh bombers' car missing, inquiry hears

CCTV which should have captured the suspected Omagh bombers' car had footage missing, an inquiry into the explosion has heard.

Det Ch Insp Ivan Gault was questioned by the inquiry's legal team about police investigations into the bombing.

Twenty-nine people, including a woman pregnant with twins, died in the bombing in the County Tyrone town on 15 August 1998 - the biggest single atrocity in the Troubles.

The inquiry heard that there was no evidence to raise any suspicions that there was any "interference" with the footage.

The bombing came less than three months after the people of Northern Ireland had voted yes to the Good Friday Agreement.

The inquiry, which opened last year with 14 days of testimony from bereaved families and survivors, was established to determine if it could have been prevented by UK state authorities.

On Tuesday, the inquiry heard that the checkpoint the bombers likely used to travel back into the Republic of Ireland was missing 22 minutes of footage.

The inquiry legal team noted that "such a length of time was highly unusual".

This is the timeframe during which the phones linked to the bombers were tracked moving back into the Republic of Ireland.

Gault said the lack of footage was unfortunate, adding that "we have no explanation for this, it's just how the footage was received at the time".

During the Royal Ulster Constabulary (RUC)'s investigations, a total of 237 CCTV tapes were gathered as evidence, but the force was not able to find any footage of the car crossing into Northern Ireland.

While Aughnacloy is now believed to be where the bombers crossed from the Republic of Ireland into Northern Ireland, Gault said that there were 52 locations considered as possible border crossing points.

He was questioned about the route that may have been taken by the car carrying the bomb and a scout car that accompanied it.

He told the inquiry the cars were unlikely to have taken the Dungannon Road in Aughnacloy, County Tyrone, as it was the location of an RUC station.

However, the RUC station in Aughnacloy had no facility to record passing cars and Gault was unable to say what resources the station had available on 15 August 1998 as it was a "small typical village station".

Gault noted that during the RUC's investigations into the bombing that there were at least 11 cameras at the army checkpoint in Aughnacloy.

The inquiry also heard that some requests for CCTV footage from watchtowers in the south Armagh area weren't made until 2005.

Gault was unable to offer an explanation for the long delay in gathering that evidence.

"I do not know the circumstances in relation to the original investigation"

Also giving evidence on Tuesday was Professor Heather Hamill, a professor of sociology at Oxford University who is an expert on code words.

She told the inquiry that code words were a "distinctive feature" of the Northern Ireland conflict, and police and security forces became familiar with code words used for genuine warnings.

"They are communications, usually a telephone call in which the caller purporting to represent a paramilitary group included a word or phrase that became associated with that group as warning of an imminent attack," Hamill said.

Calls containing code words were made to a wide range of organisations including media organisations, offices, charities and named individuals.

The inquiry heard that the Real IRA, who claimed responsibility for the Omagh bombing, used the code word Marta Pope at least four times, including in warning calls about attacks on Lisburn, Newry and Banbridge.

It was also used in all three warning calls about the Omagh bombing, which came 35 minutes before it detonated.

Hamill said that locations included in warning calls were "generally accurate" except for the Omagh calls.

The code word Martha Pope is taken from the name of an American political aide who served as a senior advisor for the Northern Ireland peace negotiations working for Senator George Mitchell.

Hamill told there inquiry that the choice had meaning.

"It was in effect making a political statement rejecting the peace process that she was part of."

The inquiry has heard audio from the phone calls made to the police following bomb warnings.

Around 30 minutes before the bomb exploded three calls were made warning about a bomb in Omagh.

In a statement to police at the time, a woman who took the call at UTV told police the caller sounded "nervous".

He said there was a 500lb bomb in Omagh near the courthouse and then spelt out the code word Martha Pope.

She immediately phoned 999.

Two minutes later she received another, similar phone call.

The inquiry team said that due to the location of the calls and the distance between them it is most likely that there were two callers.

Data analyst Mark Safranauskas, from Greater Manchester Police, was at the inquiry to map the call locations.

Cell site mast data placed the two warning calls as having come from public phone boxes in Forkhill and Newtownhamilton.

There was a further call to the Samaritans in Coleraine, again using the code word, warning about a 500lb bomb.

The caller said it was on "High Street about 200 yards up from the courthouse".

The inquiry was also played a clip of an RUC radio transmission as it deployed into Omagh town centre.

Most of the officers were concentrated around the courthouse area.

The inquiry heard that around six minutes before the bomb detonated the RUC had "cleared and sealed off" John Street, George's Street High Street and Market Street.

The Inquiry was also shown a photograph taken at 15:00 BST in which the Vauxhall Cavalier with cloned plates is visible.