Horror over discovery of pipe bomb at school

A PIPE bomb was defused at a flashpoint school in north Belfast yesterday.

Just an hour before the start of the first term of 2003, a device was discovered on the front gates of the Holy Cross Girls’ Primary School in the Ardoyne district.

School governor Father Aidan Troy said: “This is a frightening development.

“We thought we had left all of this behind but this is horrific, and some of the children didn’t come to school because of the alert.”

Army explosives experts were called in and pupils were forced to take an alternative route to class.

The school was at the centre of a bitter blockade just over a year ago.

In 200, terrified Holy Cross girls and their parents endured a daily torrent of abuse from loyalists living close to the school.

The frightening three month ordeal followed a dispute between deeply divided Catholic and Protestant communities living close together.

Sinn Fein’s North Belfast Assemblyman Gerry Kelly blamed the loyalist paramilitary Ulster Defence Association for the attack.

He said: “The New Year has only begun and already we have a disgraceful attack on children by some faction of the UDA.”

A police spokeswoman later confirmed that soldiers had defused what they believed to be a genuine pipe bomb.

A number of items were taken away for forensic tests, she said.