Outside policeman named for Omagh investigation
The North’s Police Board has agreed to appoint an officer from outside the PSNI to play a key role in the investigation into the Omagh bombing.
The job will be filled by Philip Jones, a detective superintendent from Merseyside in Britain.
The decision to give Mr Jones a role in the Omagh inquiry falls short of Ombudsman’s Nuala O’Loan’s recommendation that an outside officer should lead the investigation, but it is more than chief constable Ronnie Flanagan was prepared to agree to.
All the same, Mr Flanagan has welcomed the move.
Michael Gallagher, whose son died in the 1998 bombing, criticised the decision, however, and said the relatives of the Omagh victims are being kept in the dark about developments in the investigation.
He called for the Ombudsman’s recommendations to be implemented in full.
