Omagh families condemn police

Furious families roundly condemned the police today after the verdict in the Omagh bomb trial, which cleared accused man Sean Hoey of all charges.

Former police chief Ronnie Flanagan was singled out for blame for the failure of the prosecution by the father of a 12-year-old boy killed in the bombing.

English solicitor Victor Barker, whose son James was among those died, said it was because of the “appalling inefficiency” of Flanagan and the original investigation that a conviction had not been secured.

Mr Barker said: “He said he would fall on his sword if anything was wrong with this investigation – I will give him the sword.”

Mr Barker, who left the court with his weeping wife Donna-Marie and 13-year-old son Oliver, said they were “very disappointed” at the verdict.

He said as a lawyer he had to accept the legal system was there to protect the human rights of people such as Sean Hoey.

“It is only a great shame that my son and the 29 people who died in Omagh had no human rights at all.”

Sean Hoey slipped away from the court through a back entrance, but his mother spoke out insisting he was an innocent man, not just one who had been found innocent.

“I want the world to know that my son, Sean Hoey, is innocent,” she said.

“I want everyone to know that this is not a failure to bring those responsible to justice – Sean is innocent,” she added.

Mrs Hoey said the authorities on both sides of the border had conducted trials in what she called a single witch-hunt.

“In both trials police officers have been exposed as lying through their teeth to secure convictions at any cost.”

She supported continuing calls by the families of the Omagh victims for a full cross-border public inquiry.

“I want to ask the question regarding the Omagh tragedy – who has the most to fear from such an inquiry? What are the authorities north and south trying to cover up?”

Michael Gallagher, whose son Aidan died in the bombing, said such an inquiry really must now be held.

The case, he said, had been a disaster for the Omagh families. “I think it is beyond belief what we have had to put up with over the last nine and a half years.

“Now both governments, given what we have experienced today and over the last nine and a half years, cannot refuse the families a cross-border public inquiry so we can get to some degree of the truth.”

Mr Gallagher said he had attended the preliminary hearing and the case had sounded good and strong.

“I don’t really know what went wrong in this case or why so much went wrong.”

Hitting out at the police handling of the case he said: “I sat through the trial for 56 days and every day you felt lower and lower.

“It beggars belief that such a thing could happen. Yes we put the police under severe pressure to get a prosecution, but we wanted a prosecution that was a strong prosecution.

“We know of no reason why there shouldn’t have been solid convictions. There will be at least 10 people who will be sitting at their Christmas dinner this year who were involved in the Omagh bomb.”

He said the intelligence service knew the people were.

“They have high level informants within the organisation, if you have high level informants what is the point of knowing the information if you don’t use it.”

The Northern Ireland Office said the detailed judgment by Mr Justice Weir would need to be studied with great care by all the criminal justice agencies.

“Whilst many advances have been made over the past few years in the way evidence is gathered and presented, it is important that lessons are learned from this case,” said a statement.

The Public Prosecution Service for Northern Ireland defended its decision to prosecute Sean Hoey.

A statement said: “The decision to prosecute Sean Hoey was made following a careful analysis of the available evidence.

“It was concluded that the evidence was sufficient to provide a reasonable prospect of obtaining a conviction.

“That evidence has properly been the subject of rigorous scrutiny in the course of the trial.”

Careful consideration would be given to what they judge had said, it added.