Officer describes scenes of Omagh bomb carnage

BODIES floated down the street after the Omagh bombing blew apart a water main, the trial heard yesterday.

One woman’s leg was partially cooked by the 1998 Real IRA explosion and another victim had his jaw blown off amid scenes of pandemonium in the Co Tyrone town.

The graphic details were outlined by police witnesses at the Belfast Crown Court trial of Sean Hoey, 37, who is accused of murdering 29 people, as well as a string of other attacks.

Sergeant Philip Marshall told the court: “The explosion had split the water main and it was gushing water, resulting in bodies being moved by the water.”

Many people were injured because the bomb warning on a busy August 15 had given the location of the 500lb car bomb in the wrong place and police had inadvertently herded shoppers and bystanders towards the blast on Market Street.

Constable James Morrell told the ninth day of the hearing: “I saw a woman sitting in the middle of the wreckage. I saw that her right leg was blown apart around the knee area.

“The lower part of her right leg was still attached. There was not much blood as the flesh and bone looked to be partly cooked.”

Emergency workers carrying the injured to Tyrone County Hospital in Omagh were turned away because the casualty unit was full.

Constable Gary McClatchey said bodies were strewn across the area.

“A number of people screamed. There was a lot of panic from people, mainly women and children,” he said.

“I recall seeing a body on the road, in the middle of the road. The whole of the bottom of his jaw was missing. It was obvious that he was dead.

The bodies, which included a woman pregnant with twins, were taken to a makeshift mortuary at Lisanelly Army barracks in the town.

Constable Geoffrey Eakin recalled seeing a dead baby girl there.

“She had black curly hair, brown eyes and was wearing a white vest,” he told Mr Justice Weir.

He added that some of the dead were badly mutilated and one decapitated: “Body number seven had no head.”

Hoey, who remained impassive as the bloody details were read out, denies 58 charges surrounding the massacre and other dissident republican bombings in the months before Omagh. He is an electrician from Molly Road, Jonesborough, south Armagh, and he has been in custody awaiting trial for almost three years.