Retired officer says ‘cowards’ who planted Omagh bomb should provide answers

A retired police officer who moved dead bodies following the Omagh bombing has said the “cowards” who left the explosive device should be providing answers to a public inquiry.

Richard Scott, who was an RUC constable in the Co Tyrone town in 1998, described scenes at a hospital following the blast as “like a scene from Vietnam”.

He told the Omagh Bombing Inquiry that his life had been “forever changed” by his experiences on the day.

He was off-duty on the day of the Real IRA bombing, but told the inquiry he had heard the explosion from his house and travelled to the town’s police station to pick up first aid kits.

He drove towards the scene with a colleague who then ran towards the town centre with the kits before returning to the car.

Mr Scott said: “He was as white as a ghost and he said, ‘This is bad, this is really bad’.”

The retired officer said he put tape across the top of Market Street, where the bomb had exploded and then brought an injured woman to Omagh Hospital in a police car.

He said: “As I drove up all I could see was people walking about, dazed and confused, it was just like a scene from something in Vietnam.

“There was an Ulsterbus at the top of the drive and I remember blood coming down the steps of that bus. There were people coming off it.”

He said he was told that the hospital was full and a member of the public volunteered to bring the injured woman to another hospital. The inquiry heard she survived.

Mr Scott said he returned to the bomb site, which he described as “total devastation”, and began searching buildings for survivors.

He said: “On the left hand side of the street as I walked up, I noticed the engine block of the car. On that same side there was water gushing down the left hand side and it was tainted with blood.”

The former officer added: “I stood with my colleague in the middle of the street, not far from the remains of the car.

“He said to me, ‘this is terrible, there are bodies everywhere’.

“I said ‘I can’t see any bodies.’

“He said, ‘look down at your feet’.

“I looked down at my feet and there was a body at my feet. Then, as I glanced round I could see bodies to my left, bodies to my right.”

He said they then tended to an injured young person.

“It was obvious there was nothing we could do. I felt absolutely useless … it makes me sick thinking about that.”

Mr Scott said a decision was taken to move bodies from Market Street to an entryway, as members of the media were gathering nearby.

He said: “I suppose this was the worst time of the day for me as we lifted young and old with varying degrees of injuries.

“The sights I saw still live with me … needless to say it was horrific and still disturbs me.”

Mr Scott, who still lives in Omagh, said he had experienced nightmares and flashbacks, but told the inquiry that no counselling was available in the immediate aftermath of the bombing.

He said: “I was quite a confident police officer in those years but I lost all my confidence and the only thing I could do was function in a desk job.”

Mr Scott was diagnosed with PTSD in 2002. He said he later medically retired from the police.

He said: “People say you move on, you forget about things, but you don’t. You don’t function, you survive. Every day is a day of survival.”

He added: “The admiration I have for my colleagues who were there on the day of the bomb and did their best to clear that scene and who tended to the dying and the injured, was exemplary.”

The retired officer said the terrorists who planted the bomb could tell exactly what had happened in Omagh.

But he said: “They don’t have the guts to own up.

“They are the cowards who came into our town and they devastated lives.

“The terrorists need to come forward and take responsibility for their cowardly acts and the death and destruction they left behind them on August 15 1998.

“It is they who should be paying for the pain and the distress they have caused to those who have suffered since and will do so in the future.

“It is they who should be here today to explain the impact of their deeds.

“They, and those who have remained silent ever since.”