PSNI officer fights for life after car bomb
Peadar Heffron, 33, had just left his home outside Randalstown, Co Antrim, to start duty in west Belfast when the device exploded under his blue Alfa Romeo car. Dissident republicans were blamed.
Constable Heffron, a Catholic who spoke Irish, was married last year.
His cousin Martin Totten, who met him with his new wife Fiona out shopping in a Tesco supermarket in Antrim just days ago said last night: “This is terrifying. I just hope we’re not slipping back into the dark old days. Everybody thought this was all behind us.”
Shocked neighbours rushed to help the injured officer whose car careered sideways on the slippery Milltown Road around 6.30am, half a mile from where he lived. He was taken to hospital for emergency treatment before being transferred to the Royal Victoria in Belfast.
Up to a dozen police cars escorted the ambulance as it drove along the M2 motorway into the city.
The constable was blown up two miles from Massereene army barracks, Antrim, where two soldiers just about to leave for Afghanistan were shot dead by the Real IRA last March. Sappers Mark Quinsey, 23, and Patrick Azimkar, 21, were gunned down as they accepted a pizza delivery outside the gates of the base.
The North’s First Minister Peter Robinson, the deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness and Taoiseach Brian Cowen, as well as other politicians and church leaders on all sides condemned the bombing.
It is the latest in a series of attacks by dissidents and virtually identical to one close to the PSNI headquarters in Belfast where an officer’s girlfriend just missed death last October.
Last year Constable Heffron, who has served with the police for nine years, was among officers who attended the first meeting where discussions in Derry between Policing Board officials and members of the public were conducted in Irish.
He also played a key role in establishing the PSNI’s gaelic football team and was this season’s captain.
He once played for Kickhams Creggan GAA club based in Randalstown where Mr Totten, the club secretary, spoke of his shock at the attack.
He said: “I really thought we were past this. Catholic members of the police service should be accepted.”
The attack was another deliberate attempt to frighten Catholics from joining the PSNI and embarrass Sinn Féin who hours later called off a meeting of its ruling executive in Dublin today because of the snow and ice.
Mr Robinson took time out from his personal family crisis to say: “This is a cowardly, evil act against a man committed to defending the free society we all enjoy.”
Mr McGuinness said: “These actions serve no purpose and will not further any cause,” he said.
Mr Cowen said it was an act of senseless violence.
