Analysing 500 million calls fell to one person, Omagh bomb inquiry hears

The "painstaking and time-consuming work" of analysing 500 million calls connected to the Omagh bomb fell to one person, a public inquiry has heard.

The inquiry heard evidence on Wednesday from a Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI) officer, who led its inquiry team into the bombing until earlier this year, and a member of An Garda Síochána (Irish police).

PSNI Det Ch Insp Pete Billingsley told the inquiry about the volume of calls that had to be analysed in the course of the investigation.

Twenty-nine people - including a woman pregnant with twins - died in the bomb in the County Tyrone town on 15 August 1998. It was the biggest single atrocity in the Troubles.

The bombing came less than three months after the people of Northern Ireland had voted yes to the Good Friday Agreement.

The inquiry, which opened last year with 14 days of testimony from bereaved families and survivors, was established to determine if it could have been prevented by UK state authorities.

Billingsley told the inquiry that the PSNI would agree that the RUC, which was the police force in Northern Ireland at the time, had an "under-resourced" Criminal Investigation Department (CID) when the bombing occurred.

However, he added, the team set up by the RUC to investigate the bombing was "significant".

"Certainly, at the time probably the largest and would probably still be significantly large today."

He said the RUC received four to five boxes of phone data from network providers and work was carried out to identify calls linked to the bombing.

When asked by an inquiry lawyer whether one person had to analyse 500 million calls, Billingsley agreed this was the case.

He went on to say that, seven weeks after the bombing, a decision was taken to remove more than half the investigators from the team.

Det Ch Insp Billingsley said while he couldn't state the "rationale" behind that decision, it was natural that any large inquiry would at some point "have to start scaling back resources".

That went further between 2008 and 2016 when there was no senior investigating officer assigned to the bombing inquiry at the PSNI and therefore no "active investigation" occurred.

The inquiry also heard evidence from Det Supt Emmet Casserly from An Garda Síochána, who describe the response from Irish police.

His evidence was given through a pre-recorded video, gathered by the inquiry in Dublin in September.

Det Supt Casserly said gardaí linked bomb parts discovered after the explosion to other attacks in 1998.

The inquiry heard that parts of a timer, battery, and a plastic lunchbox lid were recovered from the Vauxhall Cavalier car used in the bombing.

The improvised timer unit found in the debris of the bomb was "consistent" with those that had been used in earlier incidents, he added.

Images of the timer power unit (TPU) were not shown at the inquiry over fears they may be of use to those "who wish to harm the public".

The inquiry was told that an invoice found during a police search detailed how 480 Coupatan timer units were bought from France and delivered to Dundalk, County Louth.

The timer found in the wreckage of the Omagh bombing is believed to have been from that batch.

Gardaí identified a list of other attacks that used the same Coupatan timers, including bombings in Newry, Lisburn and Belfast in the months before the Omagh bomb.

The same brand of timer was also found by gardaí when it intercepted a large car bomb in Dún Laoghaire in April 1998.

The Garda told the hearing that the Omagh bomb was made of a mix of ammonium nitrate based on fertiliser and sugar, a booster charger and an electronic detonator.

Forensic scientists working for An Garda Síochána were able to identify glue and fibres on the bomb, which linked it to four other attacks.

The inquiry heard that no DNA swabs were taken from the suspects arrested by gardaí investigating the bombing.

Irish legislation at the time did not allow for the retention of DNA samples for future analysis - this was changed by the introduction of the criminal justice forensic evidence and DNA database systems act in 2014.

Det Supt Casserly also quoted three calls to the media in Dublin in which Óglaigh na hÉireann claimed responsibility for the bombing.

An unidentified caller said: "It was not our intention at any time to kill any civilians, it was a commercial target part of an ongoing war against the Brits, we offer apologies to the civilians."