Police 'given tip-off before bomb killed officer'

Police were warned the IRA planned to bomb Newry on the same day they murdered a woman officer in the town, outside investigators have discovered.

Representatives from Ombudsman Nuala O’Loan’s office found details of a tip-off recorded in a log book for March 27, 1992, intelligence sources confirmed.

The information is understood to be even more specific than an alleged warning from an ex-military agent whose claims are at the centre of Mrs O’Loan’s bid to establish if Special Branch let the IRA launch the attack in order to protect an informer.

Former Chief Constable Ronnie Flanagan has always maintained his officers knew nothing of an IRA operation in advance of the strike on Newry, Co Down, which killed 34-year-old RUC Constable Colleen McMurray.

She was travelling in a police car hit at point-blank range by a mortar bomb triggered by a photographic flashgun in the town’s Merchant’s Quay area.

Her colleague, Paul Slaine, lost both his legs in the blast.

Earlier that day, all police patrols in Newry were recalled to the station without any explanation.

Soon after they were let back on the streets the attack was launched.

A source familiar with the investigation claimed it was a potentially devastating development for the police.

He said: “Maybe this was an oversight, but it’s shocking that this was one of their own who was killed.”

Kevin Fulton, a one-time Army agent who infiltrated the IRA and is now in hiding in England, claims he alerted his handlers days before the bombing that an attack by the paramilitaries was imminent.

Although the undercover operative did not know where the Provisionals planned to use the device, Fulton alleges he passed details of the mortar and the bombmaker’s identity to police who could have put him under surveillance.

An investigation team called in by the Ombudsman, which includes representatives from Scotland Yard, has been attempting to establish whether Special Branch failed to arrest the terrorist or intercept the device.

Their inquiries have now established that a second, more detailed warning was made.

“The police log book has an entry which said an intelligence officer had phoned through to Newry and told them there was going to be an attack on Newry that day, March 27, 1992,” one informed source revealed.

Mrs O’Loan’s office refused to confirm any details of the discovery.

A spokesman said: “The investigation is seeking to establish what, if any, intelligence, was available prior to this attack.”

The disclosure is expected to be a hammer blow for both Mr Slaine, who received the RUC’s George Medal from the Queen and is still a serving officer, and Mrs McMurray’s family.

The dead woman’s relatives have been left angry and frustrated in their attempts to find out why patrols in Newry were ordered back to base, friends said.

Mr Slaine, who is believed to have challenged Ronnie Flanagan about the original allegations, did not want to comment on the probe.

A Police Service of Northern Ireland spokesman added that it would be wrong to say anything while the Ombudsman’s investigation was ongoing.

But Jeffrey Donaldson, Democratic Unionist MP for Lagan Valley, who has been pressing for the circumstances surrounding the murder to be reinvestigated, described it as a major development.

He said: “Up to now the family have been told that such specific intelligence was not available.

“If this log book has emerged and if the intelligence services were aware of an imminent attack at Newry that day, it does raise a number of issues about why all police patrols were instructed to return to the station and then were sent back out again without any explanation.

“I do not want to prejudge the outcome of the investigation, but the family are entitled to know the answers to questions they have been putting for some time.”

Meanwhile, Fulton, whose warnings about a planned terrorist attack ahead of the 1998 Omagh bombing were central to Mrs O’Loan’s scathing critique of the police investigation into the atrocity which claimed 29 lives, has suffered a major setback in his fight to force the British government into giving him extra personal protection.

It is understood former security minister Jane Kennedy told his solicitors that, following a review, she had decided against making any additional provisions. Although the threat against him in Northern Ireland was assessed as severe, in Britain it was regarded as only moderate.

The decision provoked dismay from Michael Gallagher, who lost his son Aidan in the Omagh massacre.

“If we are going to encourage people to come forward and tell the truth about what they know, we can’t abandon them,” he said.

“If this man has saved many lives, then the government should take care of him.”