RUC helps investigate bomb alert at races

Police in Surrey were last night working with RUC intelligence to try to establish whether the bomb threat which led to the evacuation of Kempton Park racecourse yesterday was a hoax or the work of dissident republicans.

A caller claiming to be from the Continuity IRA issued the warning to the BBC in Belfast at about 1.30 p.m., 50 minutes before the start of the Pertemps King George VI Chase, one of the biggest races of the National Hunt season.

The male caller, who used an unrecognised code word, said a bomb had been planted at the racecourse and would explode at 5 p.m. However, the deadline passed without incident and no trace of a device was found. A police spokesman said the search was completed at 6.19 p.m.

Despite the threat, the main race went ahead at 2.20 p.m. Only after it finished were the 20,000 race-goers evacuated.

There was some confusion last night as to the exact timing of the warning, with the BBC saying it came through to its reception desk at about 1.30 p.m. and that it notified the police immediately.

A Metropolitan Police spokeswoman said it "received a threatening call at 13.48 p.m. We conducted inquiries and as a result, the management took the decision to close the course".

However, Chief Insp. Ian Whyte of Surrey Police said: "We received information of a bomb warning after 2 p.m. and passed the information to the management at Kempton who decided that for public safety they would terminate the race meeting because the main race had finished."

He said the race was "either ongoing or it had finished when the warning came".

Ms Sue Ellen, managing director of United Racecourses, said: "When the first warning call came in, the runners for the King George VI steeplechase were in the paddock. We were then talking to the police and it was when the race was going on that we decided to evacuate the grounds."

She added: "We had to decide whether we thought this was real or whether it was a hoax but if there was a device it was not due to go off for a period of time. We ran the big race which was what everyone had come for and we felt this was the thing to do.

"If we had been told it would be 10 or 15 minutes before the device was due to go off we would have come to a different outcome."

Only two races had still to be run when the evacuation took place.

The caller had used a word which bore similarities to a recognised Continuity IRA code word but was itself not recognised. The dissident republican group had made no comment by late last night either confirming or denying responsibility.

However, in a statement issued yesterday, the Fine Gael leader, Mr John Bruton, said the incident "shows very clearly the absolute barren thinking of the Continuity IRA . . . these bombers do not want any coming together on these islands. The kindling of hatred is their only reason for existence."