Man cleared of Omagh bomb charges

Victims' relatives looked on in disbelief when Sean Hoey, 38, from Jonesborough, south Armagh, waved to his family clapping in the public gallery before walking away a free man from the dock at Belfast Crown Court.

Delivering his verdict nearly 10 months after the 56-day trial finished, Mr Justice Weir also hit out at the parts of the forensic science process which resulted in vital DNA evidence being contaminated. He said the bagging, labelling, recording, packaging, storing and transmitting of some of the items was thoughtless and slapdash.

He declared: "It is difficult to avoid some expression of surprise that in an era in which the potential for fibre, if not DNA, contamination was well known to the police, such items were so widely and routinely handled with cavalier disregard for their integrity."

Apart from the 29 murders and causing the explosion which ripped through the Co Tyrone town injuring hundreds after three telephone warnings failed to identify the spot where the 500lb car bomb had been abandoned. Mr Hoey was also cleared of 26 other charges linked to a series of attacks in the months before Omagh.

Families of the dead said they were stunned Hoey had been acquitted of all the charges, but have pledged to press ahead with a High Court civil action for £14 million compensation against five men whom they claim were responsible for the attack by the dissident republican group, the so-called Real IRA. It is due to start in April.

One of the five is Mr Hoey's uncle, Colm Murphy, 52, from Dundalk, Co Louth, who is challenging a decision to re-try him in Dublin on charges connected to the Omagh bombing. He sat directly behind his nephew in the public gallery as Mr Justice Weir took an hour and a quarter to announce his verdict.

The judge said: "I am acutely aware that the stricken people of Omagh and every other right-thinking member of the Northern Ireland community would very much wish to see whoever was responsible for the outrageous events of August 1998 and the other serious crimes in this series of terrorist incidents, convicted and punished for their crimes according to law."

However he was firmly in mind of the cardinal principle of the criminal law as set out by Lord Lowry in the the Court of Appeal which demanded evidence so convincing in truth and manifestly reliable that it reached the standard of proof beyond reasonable doubt. The judge declared: "The evidence against the accused in this case did not reach that immutable standard."

Senior police officers involved in an investigation which cost an estimated £16 million said they were bitterly disappointed by the court ruling.