Anger over PSNI handling of car bomb

Police in the North faced growing anger tonight after being accused of abandoning an area prior to a car bomb attack.

Officers failed to arrive on the scene before last night’s device exploded outside an unoccupied police station in the south Armagh town of Newtownhamilton.

The bomb in a Toyota Corolla detonated 50 minutes after a hospital received a telephone warning from the bombers – who also fired a volley of shots as they abandoned the vehicle.

A Lithuanian man and a woman aged in her 80s suffered non-life-threatening injuries in the explosion.

In the absence of police on the ground, firefighters who had been responding to an unrelated incident nearby were forced to co-ordinate an evacuation of nearby homes prior to the blast.

Police commanders, who finally deployed officers to the scene around 10 minutes after the bomb went off, said they had to proceed with caution due to the threat of secondary booby trap or gun attacks.

But Presbyterian minister in Newtownhamilton Rev. Ker Graham said members of his congregation felt the police were reluctant to patrol the overwhelmingly republican district.

“There’s no security within this area,” he said.

“My question is where does the border start for police? Because local people feel they don’t like coming into this area. They feel vulnerable and are living in fear, they have been through thirty years of conflict and don’t want to go back.

“South Armagh appears to be like a red dot for the police – a bad area – but it’s still part of Northern Ireland and the whole area has to be policed.”

The attack, which damaged a number of homes, a pub and a community centre, came just hours after security chiefs warned the terrorist threat level in the North was as high as any time since the Omagh bombing of 12 years ago.

It also came 10 days after dissidents abandoned another bomb outside the same police station – though it failed to detonate.

That incident came 24 hours after a Real IRA car bomb exploded outside the regional headquarters of MI5 in Holywood, Co Down, minutes after justice powers were devolved to Stormont from London.

Rev. Graham added: “This is the second attack in the town in just over a week and it comes as we’re told the threat is the highest since the Omagh bomb. Surely police ought to have been in vulnerable areas with officers on the ground trying to defend them?”

Nationalist and unionist political representatives from the area have also hit out at the police response.

SDLP Assembly member Dominic Bradley said locals in south Armagh felt vulnerable.

“People feel unprotected,” he said.

“Given there was an attack only a week ago you would have thought commanders would have reviewed the situation and placed more police on the ground to protect the area. They obviously haven’t learned those lessons.”

Ulster Unionist deputy leader Danny Kennedy contrasted the response of the police and fire services.

“The police were still not present at that time (when the bomb exploded) and had it not been for the excellent and very prompt work of local firemen, then we could have had a very serious situation,” he said.

“Clearly those (police) response times are not appropriate, they are not in line with responses that should be given, given the overall security situation.”

But senior police chiefs and Northern Ireland’s new Justice Minister David Ford defended the handling of the incident.

Assistant Chief Constable Dave Jones, who said the dissidents’ prime objective was to kill police officers, claimed local commanders had undertaken a risk assessment after receiving reports of gunfire in the area.

“Our response to certain incidents is always going to be based on certain risk assessments and the reason why we are having to review the way in which we do these things is because there are people out there who are trying to kill,” he said.

“There are various examples of where we have responded appropriately at certain times and sometimes probably as not as quickly as we would want – that’s constantly under review.”

The senior commander acknowledged that police had to effectively convey to local people why there were sometimes delays.

“I think we will always learn lessons from incidents and I think we need to make sure that we are constantly engaging with the community to make sure they understand why we respond in the way that we do,” he said.

Minister Ford, in the post for less than two weeks, backed the police’s explanation.

“I think it is natural that people will have concerns,” he said after receiving a debrief from ACC Jones and other senior officers at Newry police station.

“But I think we also need to ensure what the priority has to be – the priority has to be to safeguard life.

“The fire service was doing an excellent job in evacuating people in Newtownhamilton but it’s clear that this was an attempt to drag police into a potential ambush situation and it’s entirely appropriate that the police commanders on the ground took the decision to go cautiously as to how they did that.

“That’s the dilemma that’s always faced, but I certainly do not want to see the situation in which police officers speed to an incident like this and run into an ambush, that is the danger for all of us and that is something that has to be considered by the commanders on the ground.”

Northern Ireland First Minister Peter Robinson, Deputy First Minister Martin McGuinness and acting chair of the NI Policing Board Brian Rea all condemned the bomb.

Protestant and Catholic church leaders roundly condemned the bombers.

In a joint statement, Church of Ireland Archbishop of Armagh Alan Harper and Catholic Auxiliary Bishop of Armagh Gerard Clifford said dissidents would not thwart efforts to build a more peaceful society.

“Last night’s attack on the community of Newtownhamilton and the police serving that community was a futile attempt to drag us back to a conflict that people on both sides of the border have intentionally and definitively left behind for ever,” they said.

“Small, secretive coteries of dissidents will not deflect us from continuing the journey towards a peaceful and reconciled society.

“However, no-one should down-play the distress for the local community caused by the fear, disruption and injury which is the outcome of these actions.

“Our sympathy and prayers for a full recovery go to the people injured in Newtownhamilton last night.

“We call upon all political representatives and electoral candidates in Northern Ireland at this time to stand together in solidarity with the people of Newtownhamilton and the PSNI and to reaffirm a cross community commitment to the primacy of the ballot box as the only legitimate way of determining the future for all citizens.”