Bomb found on lorry bound for Scotland in Brexit Day attack

Police in Northern Ireland are investigating a dissident Irish republican plot to blow up a lorry due to cross the Irish Sea to Scotland on Brexit Day.

Officers are investigating a link to a ferry crossing to Scotland on 31 January and a bomb found on a heavy goods vehicle in Co Armagh earlier this week.

Police received a report that an explosive device was on a lorry in Belfast docks last Friday, the day the UK left the EU.

The report received by police claimed the ferry was due to travel to Scotland.

A search was carried out but nothing was found and the ferry sailed as planned.

But three days later, on Monday, officers received a further report that a device was attached to a lorry belonging to a named haulage company.

After a two-day operation, which involved the search of 400 vehicles, an explosive device was found attached to a heavy goods vehicle in the Silverwood industrial estate in Lurgan, Co Armagh. It was made safe by Army bomb disposal officers. It is understood the bomb was discovered on the trailer unit of a lorry owned by a haulage company that specialises in transporting frozen goods across the UK, the Republic of Ireland and Europe.

Police have appealed for anyone who saw anything suspicious on the estate between 4pm and 10pm on Brexit Day to come forward.

Detective Superintendent Sean Wright, from the Police Service of Northern Ireland’s Terrorism Investigation Unit, said: “It is clear from the information available to police that dissident republicans deliberately and recklessly attached an explosive device to a heavy goods vehicle in the full knowledge and expectation that it would put the driver of that vehicle, road users and the wider public at serious risk of injury and possible death.

“Had this vehicle travelled and the device exploded at any point along the M1, across the Westlink [road through Belfast] or into the Harbour estate, the risks posed do not bear thinking about. The only conclusion that we can draw is that, once again, dissident republicans have shown a total disregard for the community, for businesses and for wider society.”

Sinn Fein’s policing spokesman Gerry Kelly said there could have been “catastrophic loss of life” if the device had detonated on board a ferry.

Ulster Unionist policing spokesman Doug Beattie called on the UK Government to take robust action against the republicans.