Judge urges inquiry on security failures ahead of Omagh attack

THE Omagh bombing may have been prevented by security forces, a judge ruled yesterday, as he ordered the Government to conduct an investigation.

The atrocity – the single worst incident in the history of the Troubles – claimed 29 lives, including that of a woman pregnant with twins, when a bomb detonated by the Real IRA ripped through the centre of Omagh on a busy Saturday afternoon in August 1998. Eleven of the victims were children.

Yesterday, a judge in the High Court in Belfast said the UK Government must now hold an inquiry into circumstances surrounding the attack, including any missed chances to prevent it.

Delivering judgment in a legal challenge against the Government’s refusal to hold a public inquiry, Mr Justice Horner said: “I am satisfied that certain grounds, when considered separately or together, give rise to plausible allegations that there was a real prospect of preventing the Omagh bombing.”

He said that the grounds included “the consideration of terrorist activity on both sides of the border by prominent dissident terrorist republicans leading up to the Omagh bomb”.

Mr Justice Horner added: “Any investigation will have to look specifically at the issue of whether a more proactive campaign of disruption, especially if co-ordinated north and south of the border, had a real prospect of preventing the Omagh bombing.”

The judge said an investigation was necessary to comply with human rights laws on the need for a thorough investigation but stopped short of insisting on a public inquiry. His full open judgment will be handed down at a later date because the legal official required to check the document before it is made public was self-isolating with Covid-19.

The judicial review of Westminster’s refusal to hold an inquiry was launched eight years ago by Michael Gallagher, whose son, Aiden, 21, died in the blast.

Yesterday, he praised the long awaited judgment and said: “We feel vindicated. This has been a great day for the families.

“We just hope that both the British and Irish governments, as the judge has recommended, will look at these issues and move them forward very quickly.

“We knew from, really, over 20 years, that this was a preventable atrocity, but it’s one thing for me to say it – it’s an entirely different thing for a senior High Court judge to.”

The Government said it would take time to consider the judgment, while the Irish premier, Micheal Martin, said his government would examine all the options and do what is “necessary”.

John Fox, solicitor for the Omagh families, said: “It is quite a harrowing finding some 23 years since the bomb, something the families have been campaigning for ... today they’re vindicated in that campaign.”

Mr Fox said any future probe would have to examine national security material of a highly sensitive nature so a public inquiry was the only option.

In the legal case, Mr Gallagher claimed that intelligence from British security agents and Royal Ulster Constabulary officers could have been drawn together to prevent the dissident republican bombing.

On Aug 4 1998, 11 days before the bombing, the RUC received an anonymous telephone warning of an “unspecified” terrorist attack on police in Omagh on Aug 15, the day of the attack.

The force’s Special Branch, which handled intelligence from agents, took limited action on the information, an investigation by former police ombudsman Baroness Nuala O’loan found.

Responding to yesterday’s judgment, Brandon Lewis, the Northern Ireland Secretary, said: “I want to put on record my deep regret that the families of those killed and wounded have had to wait so long to find out what happened on that terrible day ... they deserve answers and I have great respect for their patience, grace and determination.”

He said: “[The Government] recognise that today the court has set out that there are ‘plausible allegations that there was a real prospect of preventing the Omagh bombing’ and that more should be done to investigate this.”

‘This was a preventable atrocity but it’s one thing for me to say it, another when a High Court judge says it’