The Police Ombudsman's investigation into the RUC's actions before and after the Omagh bombing does not establish that the force knew beforehand that a bomb attack was due to take place in Omagh.
The report is effectively in two sections, the first dealing with tip-offs received before the bombing and the second part on the conduct of the subsequent investigation. It is highly critical of the police investigation which has resulted in no prosecutions in Northern Ireland.
There are references to two tip-offs received by the RUC: one from an anonymous caller 11 days before the bombing that a gun and rocket attack was due to take place in Omagh on August 15th, the day of the bombing; and a second call four days before the bombing from an RUC informant stating that the "Real IRA" was planning to move explosives over the Border into Northern Ireland "over the next few days". The informant, originally from Newry, Co Down, is given the pseudonym "Kevin Fulton".
The first caller said two AK47 rifles and a grenade launcher were to be used against the RUC in or around Omagh. Police sources say that, in response to this, the local commander directed that most of his officers be dispersed around to provide a security cordon and to try and intercept any planned attack.
The RUC action meant that there were fewer than usual police officers in the town when the attack took place.
The sources also point out that the tip-off about an attack on the security forces, rather than a car bomb attack on the commercial heart of the town, contributed to the RUC's difficulties in discovering the actual whereabouts of the bomb after receiving an incorrect warning on the day that the bomb was elsewhere in the town.
The warning, received shortly before the bomb exploded, suggested it was outside or near the courthouse at the top of the town. The RUC officers on duty were directing the public away from this point when the bomb exploded in the main shopping street.
The second "warning" that the RUC was supposed to have received about the atrocity came from a man who was working, on-and-off, as an informant for the RUC and possibly the Garda since the early 1990s. This man has been based in and around the south Armagh area and has supplied both reliable and unreliable information. Since last year he has been in contact with journalists in Northern Ireland suggesting that he had tipped off the RUC about Omagh but was ignored.
The Police Ombudsman's report shows that this man called the RUC three days before the bombing and said the "Real IRA" was "about the move something north over the next few days".
According to Garda sources, however, it is known that the explosives used in Omagh had moved across the Border at least a week before the bombing. If this is the case, the RUC informant's information is wrong.
However, as the Ombudsman's inquiry and report appears to be confined to available information sources within the RUC, the veracity of the informant's information is not established.
The informant mentioned names of a number of well-known "Real IRA" figures, some of whom were almost certainly involved in the bombing, in the call to his RUC agent handler. The report says the naming of these figures is, somehow, highly significant as subsequent investigations did indeed show that at least one figure was centrally involved. However, the figures referred to by the informant were known to a wide circle of people including security journalists. The names cropped up within days in speculation about those responsible for the attack.
The Chief Constable of the Police Service of Northern Ireland (PSNI), Sir Ronnie Flanagan, has previously described the informant's call about explosives crossing the Border as "retrospective" and "found to be without foundation". The Ombudsman's report contests this saying: "It was not retrospective and has been found to have substance."
The inference arising from last week's leaking of a draft version of the report was that the RUC knew beforehand there was to be a bomb attack on Omagh.
The report devotes its first six pages to the relevance or otherwise of these tip-offs and leaves open the question of whether or not the RUC could have prevented the atrocity.
The report speculates: "It will never be known whether or not the bombing of Omagh could have been prevented if the RUC had taken more action in relation to the information it received during the period between 4 and 15 August, 1998."
This stance, inherent in which is at least the suggestion that individually or collectively the RUC could have prevented the worst atrocity in the history of the Northern Ireland troubles, has greatly angered many members of the RUC and led to intense criticism of the report by unionist politicians. Lord McGuinness of the Ulster Unionist Party yesterday called on the Ombudsman, Mrs Nuala O'Loan, to resign because of what he said was the inferred slur on the RUC.
Police sources said yesterday the bombing and its aftermath, and the recent statements implying that the RUC had somehow failed to prevent the bombing, has caused considerable stress to many of the officers who served in Omagh on the day and who participated before and afterwards on duty in Co Tyrone. The sources said these officers were deeply resentful about their treatment.
The second section of the report details a number of failings on the part of the Omagh investigation which it points out was effectively wound down within a few months and led to no charges in the North.
Both the RUC and Garda initially set up large investigations, involving up to 40 detectives in Co Monaghan and the same number in Omagh. However, it now appears both investigations were, effectively, wound down by November that year - three months after the bombing in August. The reason for this has yet to emerge.
However, Garda sources have speculated that it was because both investigations quickly established that there were informants working within the "Real IRA" on both sides of the Border and these would have to be exposed if prosecutions were to be pursued. If cases were to be brought on the strength of evidence from these informants, the prosecutions would have to take place inside the jurisdiction of Northern Ireland.
The use of "accomplice evidence" was largely discredited by the Northern Ireland judiciary during the 1980s after a series of large "supergrass" trials involving multiple republican and loyalist defendants. It could not be certain that a case based on evidence from an accomplice to the bombers, particularly one acting at the time of the attack as a paid police informant, would stand up in court in the North. (Such evidence was admitted in the cases against the Dublin drugs gang which murdered journalist Veronica Guerin).
Finally, the report concludes that there was a "failure in leadership" in the RUC and recommends that another investigation be set up under a senior officer from an outside force and that there be clearer lines of communication between the Special Branch and "ordinary" crime branch, CID (Criminal Investigation Department). Major structural reforms already underway are expected to, effectively, create an amalgamation between the Special Branch and CID.