Police go to court over Omagh bombing report

Police in Northern Ireland go to court today in a bid to overturn the damning report into their handling of the Omagh bomb investigation by Police Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan.

The Police Association, which represents senior officers and rank and file members of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), is taking the High Court action in Belfast to try to overturn the report she produced in December 2001.

A judicial review granted last year is expected to take two days and judgment is likely to be reserved to a later date.

Lawyers representing the association are expected to argue that Mrs O’Loan did not go about her investigation in the right way and that her report was unfair.

Among those offering affidavits in support of overturning the report are former Northern Ireland chief constable Ronnie Flanagan, and former assistant chief constable Ray White.

The Ombudsman’s office is expected to offer counter affidavits from the PSNI acting deputy chief constable Alan McQuillan and assistant chief constable Sam Kincaid.

Neither Sir Ronnie nor Mrs O’Loan were expected to attend the hearing.

The critical report into the Real IRA’s bombing of the Co Tyrone town in August 1998 – Northern Ireland’s worst terrorist atrocity, in which 29 people and two unborn children were killed and hundreds injured – sent shockwaves through police ranks.

No one has been charged with the killings, but families of those who died are taking civil court action against five men they believe to be responsible and seeking £10m (€15.4m) compensation.

Mrs O’Loan’s report into the police investigation said there had been “defective leadership, poor judgement and a lack of urgency”.

She singled out Sir Ronnie accusing him of “seriously flawed” judgment.

Denouncing her report in an emotional public response at the time, the former chief constable said that if he believed the allegations to be true “I would not only resign, I would publicly commit suicide”.

He considered the report to be the result of “an erroneous conclusion reached in advance and then a desperate attempt to find anything that might happen to fit in with that, and a determination to exclude anything which does not fit that erroneous conclusion”.

Flanagan did not resign, but retired three months later, at the end of March 2002, after being asked to stay on for an extra month by the Policing Board.

He became one Her Majesty’s Inspectors of Constabulary.

In the Queen’s Jubilee Birthday Honours he was awarded a second and more senior knighthood to add to the one awarded in 1998, for his management of the difficult changeover from the RUC to the new PSNI.